


To Swallow The Sun

by KaedeRavensdale



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But he's still a parselmouth, Concubine Harry, Harry Is Not A Horcrux, M/M, Mummy inspired au, No Voldemort, Pharaoh Tom, Time Travel Elements, consort harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 58,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29831520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaedeRavensdale/pseuds/KaedeRavensdale
Summary: Ever since he turned 17, Harry Potter has been having strange dreams of a life spent as the lover of an ancient Pharaoh. When Bill reaches out to him for assistance in opening a recently discovered tomb the burial chamber of which has been sealed with Parseltongue, the newly graduated Gryffindor begins to think there might be more to his dreams than meets the eye. After all, the murderous mummy they've unwittingly set free seems pretty convinced that he's the reincarnation of his consort.A story of loops in time and a doomed effort to save a monster's soul.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 308
Kudos: 603
Collections: Top-tier HP/TMR Fics





	1. The Unproven Theory of Wrinkles in Time

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally meant to be my contribution to the 2018 Tomarry Big Bang but I ended up falling out of the fandom before the event could actually start. I found the first four chapters saved on my old computer and picked up the idea where I'd left it off.

**Part One: The Serpent Tyrant**

“Sugar Quills.”

The gargoyle barring the entrance to the Headmaster’s office leapt aside and cleared his path. Harry offered the ancient statue a small smile before he stepped through the doorway and onto the spinning staircase. Allowing himself to be carried up to the door of the office before raising his hand to knock and entering once he’d been invited inside.

Throughout his seven years spent at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had visited the Headmaster’s office on a number of occasions-largely due to the fact that he’d inherited his father’s propensity for getting into trouble, helped along by the family heirlooms he’d been given the Christmas after he’d turned eleven: the invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map-and had by consequence come to consider the congenial old man something of a surrogate grandfather. He’d always been willing to listen when Harry had something he wanted to talk about or needed help with. Had, on more than one occasion, invited Harry up to his office simply for the sake of a spot of tea, during which the raven would often be regaled by an adventure from his school days which somehow tied in with Harry’s own most recent late night wanderings he’d been certain no one had known about. By now, the sight of the office was more than familiar; one of the many aspects of the castle he would miss.

Late morning sunlight spilled through the gabled windows set into stone walls hung with the portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses and lined with shelves of books. Countless spindly silver instruments the function of which Harry doubted he’d ever understand were scattered about at intervals on numerous small tables, filling the room with a low ambience of beeps and whirs. Fawkes trilled a greeting from atop his golden perch.

“I’ll admit my surprise at having you here at this time of day, my boy.” Dumbledore sat behind the heavy desk, observing him over the rims of his half-moon glasses. “It certainly must be urgent, Harry. You’re in danger of missing the train.”

“Ron and Hermione brought my trunk down for me, Sir.” He said. “I wanted to talk to someone about this for a number of months now but haven’t really known how to, nor did I really think it was important enough to bother with, but…” he fixed his green eyes on Fawkes instead. The Phoenix gazed back curiously. “Now that I know what I’ll be doing this summer that’s changed. And, I thought, if anyone would know anything about why it’s happening it would be you.”

“And what is it that you’re doing this summer that has brought this matter to such a concern?”

“Ron’s older brother Bill is in Egypt working for Gringotts; he and a couple other Curse Breakers found an old tomb but can’t get into the burial chamber because it’s sealed with Parseltongue.” He said. “Bill knew I’m a Parselmouth so he asked my family to come help them. We’ll be leaving for Cairo in the morning through the International Floo. I just think it’s strange, Sir, with what’s been happening since I’ve turned seventeen that I’d find myself in Egypt.”

“Have a seat, Harry, and we’ll talk about this in more detail.” The raven silently took the indicated seat across the desk from him. “Lemon drop?”

He shook his head, setting his gaze this time on his hands where they lay folded in his lap.

“What is it that’s been happening since this past summer, when you came of age? And what about it makes it so curious that you’d find yourself summering in a land of ancient magic?” Dumbledore selected a yellow candy from the silver dish which sat in front of him and popped it into his mouth.

“I’ve been having strange dreams all year.” He admitted. “Not every night, or even most nights usually, but at least once every month or so. The strangest thing about them is they seem too…real. They feel more like memories than dreams; I’m watching myself, or at least someone who looks an awful lot like me, and can feel everything they feel but I’m not the one doing anything and I’m-.” Harry turned bright red and choked up. “I don’t know terribly much about Ancient Egypt but I’ve flipped through a few books recently, since I learned we’d be going, and the way they’re dressed-me a-and the…the other man-and the way that the rooms looked in the…I think it was a palace. It makes me wonder if there’s such a thing as past lives.”

“There have been a few cases, I believe Harry, but I can’t say all that much I’m afraid. The Unspeakables are quite tight lipped about their areas of study in the Department of Mysteries.” Dumbledore said. “However, from what I understand of such things I do not believe that the source of your strange memory-dreams is a life lived out centuries ago. Especially if you’ve only recently begun to see these things and they center solely around one person: this ‘other man’ you’ve spoken of.”

Once again, Harry turned bright red.

“No need to be embarrassed, my boy. Such things are simply the charm of being young. The proper course of love and youth.” He said. “Did any of these dreams concern a childhood, or even a hint of one?” the raven shook his head. “Then I feel confident enough in stating, at least as far as my knowledge of the subject extends, that what you’re experiencing is not the residual memories of a past life at all.”

“Am I just going crazy then?” Harry wasn’t certain if that would be more of a disappointment or a relief. If it was a sign he was going crazy at least there was a chance it could be fixed by a (perhaps extended) stay in the Janus Thickey ward.

“Some might attempt to convince you that you are, my dear boy. But I prefer to look towards explanations which are, perhaps, a bit less obvious.” He said. “A bit less…accepted as well. If you would indulge me in exercising a bit of a theory, I may have an alternate explanation.”

“Will it keep me out of St. Mungo’s?” Harry asked with a weak smile.

Dumbledore chuckled and picked up another lemon drop. “Most people consider this theory to be the sort of crazy which is rather difficult to diagnose. So yes, I should think it will.” He said. “Have you ever heard of a Wrinkle in Time?”

Harry blinked. “The Muggle novel, Sir?” he asked. “I think I may have read it back in grade school.”

“Muggles and their fantastic imaginations. A good book, if I do say so myself, but no. That’s not the Wrinkle in Time that I’m referring to.” He said. “It’s never been proven and likely never will, all those who potentially have been connected to Wrinkles in Time have ultimately disappeared, presumably to the past, after meeting certain criteria. To my understanding those are speculated to be contact with an object from that time period which belonged to them while in the past and aligned thinking with themselves while they were in the past. But ultimately this is merely the conjecture of an old man; put only as much stock in it as you wish. But, nevertheless, it would be wise to be mindful of what you touch whilst abroad. The Ancient Egyptian people, after all, were known for their skill in Dark Magic and one wouldn’t want to end up with body parts missing or multiplied.” Another thin smile. “Now hurry along. You’ve just enough time to make it down to Hogsmeade Station.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Harry said, rising from his seat.

“Of course, my boy.” Dumbledore said. “And remember that Alumni are always welcome here at Hogwarts even if it’s only for a spot of tea.”

As he exited the office and started back down the revolving staircase Harry realized that Dumbledore hadn’t really explained in clear terms precisely what being a ‘Wrinkle in Time’ entailed.

Seven years of Quidditch had done him good, at least so far as allowing him to sprint all the way out of the castle, across the grounds and through the village of Hogsmead without breaking much of a sweat. Bolting through the doorway and across the platform, Harry stuck the landing of a flying leap onto the stairs of the Hogwarts Express just as the final warning whistle blew.

Pulling open the door of the train the raven stumbled into the corridor as the Express began a lethargic exit from the station. Taking a moment to lean against the wall and catch his breath Harry straightened his robes and set off in search of the compartment Ron and Hermione had taken up in for the duration of the coming seven hour journey back to London.

“I was starting to think you’d decided to repeat a year to make up for your dismal N.E.W.T scores.” Draco leaned against the paneling a handful of compartments down, arms crossed over his chest and silver eyes half-lidded. “And here I’d thought I wouldn’t have to deal with you this summer after all.”

“The ‘Gryffindors are all bravery and no brains’ angle is old hat, Draco. I’m starting to see why you ended up in the House of Ambition instead of the House of Wit.” He said. “I’ll have you know the only classes I did badly in, at least as far as I can tell, were History of Magic and Divination and we both know those classes are useless anyway. You haven’t sniped at any of us with much bite since Third Year, Malfoy. You might want to pick your game up if you’re going to change that in the seven hours we have left before we’re unleashed on the real world.”

“Just because we’re all being dragged to Egypt with you this summer doesn’t mean you have to reference the bloody Muggle Bible and make us out to be a plague of locusts.” The Slytherin pushed off from the corridor’s wall. “And excuse me for making an effort not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the lion that strong armed me into being his ‘friend’.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but on the way over to Hogwarts our first year you offered your hand unsolicited to me.” Harry said as he closed the distance between them. 

“Because I hoped to guide you to a proper friend group not get taken hostage by a clan of weasels!"

“Shouldn’t you be on your rounds, Mr. Seventh Year Slytherin Prefect?”

“Bite me, Potter. Even Grangers skiving; we’d all rather talk about the upcoming trip.” He said. “The compartments over here.”

Laughing, Harry bounded after the taller blonde.

“I told you lot I’d find him.” Draco said as he pushed open the sliding door. “Two sickles, Weasley. Pay up.”

“Were you betting on whether or not I’d miss the Express?” the little raven dropped into the open seat next to Ginny.

“No!” Ron said hotly, glaring at his smirking boyfriend. “We didn’t have any bets running you prat!”

“Sure we did.”

“Since when?”

“Since now.”

“Slimy snake!”

“You wound me.” Draco drawled, clearly very much unwounded. He lowered himself primly onto the bench beside Ron. “Blow me later and we’ll call it even.”

“Eck.” Ginny mimed a choking motion. Harry snickered. Hermione rolled her eyes and turned the page of the book she was reading.

“You’re not getting anything, prat.” Ron grumbled, turning away. “What happened, mate? You ran off before either Hermione or I could get you to explain what was going on.”

“I needed to talk to Dumbledore about dreams I’ve been having since I turned seventeen.” He said.

“Dreams?” lowering her book at last, Hermione looked at him with concern. “What kind of dreams?”

“Wet dreams?” when the raven lit up bright red Ginny’s brown eyes went round. “Oh Merlin, they were! You talked to _Dumbledore_ about _wet dreams_?”

“Mate,” Ron said, “those are normal.”

“They’re not wet dreams!” Harry squeaked.

“Oh?” Draco had the grin of a cat that had caught the canary; he leaned forward towards him, pale fingers gripping the rim of his seat. “Then why did you turn the color of your House’s banner?”

“No reason!”

“Was there sex in those dreams?”

“No!”

“You’re pants at lying.”

“…Not all of them.”

“But there _was_ some?”

Harry eyed the window, wondering if he’d be able to squeeze his body through it and throw himself from the moving train. “Yes.”

“Then they’re wet dreams.” The blonde sat back. “At least you didn’t go running to the Hospital Wing when you woke up and had to change your knickers. I hadn’t pegged you for such a prude.”

“I’m not a prude and I know damn well what sex is, bell end, I’ve had wet dreams before! I just like to keep certain things private, hard as that may be for you to understand!” The raven grumbled.

Beside him, Ginny muttered “thank Merlin,” under her breath.

“The fact that some of the dreams include sex is incidental and wasn’t the problem. The problem was that those dreams started the night I turned seventeen, not before, and that they’re less like dreams are supposed to be and more like memories of being the royal consort of a bloody Pharaoh!”

“The royal consort of a Pharaoh?” Draco’s silver eyebrows had all but disappeared into his hairline. “You have some interesting fetishes. Then again, who am I to judge; I’m sure the cock of the Sun God is absolutely divine.”

Harry flung a mild Stinging Hex at the blonde but missed. Hermione shook her head and said “just because the Ancient Egyptians considered their Pharaohs to be incarnations of Ra or Horus doesn’t make your ‘cock of the Sun God’ comment clever, Draco.”

“The more important question,” Ginny snickered, “is whether or not he’s a sexy Pharaoh.”

Another blush, lighter this time, dusted the apples of his cheeks. “Very.” He said. “I can’t understand him unless he speaks Parseltongue and hearing the snake language coming from him…” even remembering it was enough to make the little raven shiver.

“He speaks Parseltongue?” Hermione repeated, finally closing her book completely and setting it aside. “Isn’t that the reason you’re all headed to Egypt tomorrow? Because that recently discovered tomb Bill is excavating had the burial chamber sealed off with it?”

“That was why I wanted to speak to Dumbledore. At first I thought my Pharaoh-I don’t know his name so I’ve taken to calling him that-was just a product of my imagination but then Bill’s letter came in December and I began wondering if my ‘dreams’ were actually memories from a past life.”

“And what did Dumbledore say?” Ron asked.

“That it probably wasn’t reincarnation because I should have more varied memories if that were the case. Of life beyond my Pharaoh. Of another childhood at least. But I don’t. I only have memories of him.” Harry said. “Dumbledore suggested it was something else. Something called a ‘Wrinkle in Time’. But he didn’t explain it very well.”

“I’ve heard of the book, but not any magical theory by that name.” Hermione said.

“I have.” Draco said. “A load of bollocks if you ask me. If you ask most people, really. Supposedly a Wrinkle in Time is why my father’s fifth cousin disappeared a decade before the tomb of a Roman Emperor by the same name was found.”

“Would you mind explaining it a bit more?” Harry asked.

“Essentially, at some point, presumably while we’re in Egypt, you’re going to touch something which belonged to the you of back then, which is technically the you of the future, and think a thought of some sort which would bring you into line with what that you was thinking. Those two things in combination will then lead to you being transported into the time period the you of then existed in and being stuck there. Which is why there was even a you of then at all.” He said. “All I have to say is enjoy living in a time period where drinking the water can kill you and indoor plumbing isn’t a thing.”

“So in simpler terms its time folding over itself?” Hermione asked.

“If you _must_ simplify things, Granger.”

Harry sighed. “I know that bad things happen to Wizards who fiddle with time. But what happens when time fiddles with Wizards?”

“They’re gifted with sexy Pharaohs, apparently.” Ginny snickered. “I can think of worse fates.”

To Harry’s relief that comment marked the end of that subject of conversation. The rest of the train ride was consumed by discussion of the outcome of their final Quidditch game and a handful of rounds of Exploding Snap.

Harry rose from his seat along with the others and opened the overhead compartment to pull down his trunk. Hedwig swiveled her head around and blinked at him with amber eyes, hooting dolefully behind the bars of her cage.

“Have fun in Cairo.” Hermione said, grabbing the handle of her trunk with one hand and hefting her massive half-kneazle with the other. “Write me when you find the time: I want to hear about anything that’s found!”

“Bloody hell, Hermione, we’ve only promised to do that thirty times.” Ron said, his own trunk bouncing around behind him.

“Thirty?” Draco repeated. “I think anything under one hundred is being rather generous.”

“I’ll send you the memories once we get back.” The raven promised. “I doubt just letters would do the experience proper justice. I’ll try and find you a nice souvenir as well.”

“Thank you, Harry.” Hermione said, smiling at him before hurrying away and quickly vanishing into the crowd.

“Father has booked an international portkey for me; I’m heading to Cairo today.” Draco told them smugly. “I’ll see the lot of you tomorrow.”

“Try not to sunburn too badly.” Ginny drawled. “It’d be a crying shame if you burned to a crisp.”

“Don’t be so harsh on your brother’s boyfriend, Gin.” Harry chuckled. “There really is no accounting for taste, but Ron already gets enough of that from Fred and George.”

“That’s your opinion?”

He nodded. “It is.”

“And what about the opinion of your sexy Pharaoh?”

“Sexy Pharaoh?” James repeated, tilting his head in confusion. “Son, is there something I should know?”

Harry almost choked on his tongue. “They’re just dreams, dad!”

“Dreams?” the older Potter pounced on his son without warning, grinning ear to ear and slinging an arm around Harry’s shoulders. Trapping him against his side. “You know, I’ve been waiting for this day for a while Harry. I was really concerned for a bit there.”

“Concerned?” Harry repeated, aware his two friends were struggling not to laugh. To his embarrassment, even passersby were starting to stare. “About what?”

His father brought a hand to his chest in an over exaggerated display of shock. “That you were sexually repressed, the greatest tragedy of man, or else that you didn’t feel comfortable enough around your mother and I to tell us that you were into men. It’s ok to be into men. Or into women. Or into both. We’re happy with whoever makes you happy. Even if it’s a Slytherin.” That last part actually sounded painful to have to say.

“James, enough, he looks like he could keel over at any moment.” Lily’s voice was a bit less stern than Harry would have liked as she approached, her long red hair bouncing against her back.

“Lily, you won’t believe it! Or son’s been having dreams about a sexy Pharaoh!” He was practically bouncing up and down. “It’s a good thing we’re headed to Egypt tomorrow, isn’t it Harry? Maybe we can find you a _real_ sexy Pharaoh.”

“You are not setting our son up with a mummy!”

“Lily, I think it’s rather irresponsible of us to attempt to dissuade our son from dating someone a couple thousand years his senior if that’s really what he wants. He is seventeen, now, after all. An adult.”

His mother placed her hands on her hips. “So are you, dear. In theory.”

Harry couldn’t contain a snort. “That’s alright, dad. I kind of prefer people who are, you know, alive?”

“Understandable. I approve of your choices, Harry, entirely.”

“…Thanks.” After seventeen years of dealing with his hyperactive father the young wizard ought to have been used to this by now.

“Welcome home, love.” Lily said, reaching out to run her fingers through the wild black hair he’d inherited from James. “I’m sure you’re tired after the train ride in.”

“A bit.” He admitted. “Is Peter still going to watch Hedwig while we’re gone?”

“Yes. And Pepper is coming with us on the trip.” She said.

“Because your mother can’t go anywhere without her cat.”

“You’d miss her too, James. Don’t lie.” Lily said. “Peter will stop by in the morning before we head over to the Ministry to take the International Floo. Remus and Sirius will meet us there, along with the Weasleys. You have everything?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Let’s head home, then.”

“We’ll use the Apparition point.” Catching the brief expression of concern which flickered across Harry’s face, James grinned. “All the more reason to practice; you never know when you may need to apparate, and splinching yourself at a time like that could get you killed.”

“I don’t think Harry’s quite at the point in his life where he’ll need to make use of some of Mad-Eye’s advice.” His mother said. “Still, your father is right Harry. Apparition is an important skill to know. After all, one can’t always count on a portkey or Floo to be nearby or the Knight Bus to take you everywhere.”

“Yes, Mum.” Arguably it was still better than taking the Floo: at least when he Apparated there wasn’t as much of a risk that he’d end up on his face. And, unlike Neville, he hadn’t yet proved himself prone to splinching.

Dragging his trunk behind him and with Hedwig’s cage in hand he followed his parents over to the Apparition point. The sensation remained to be as uncomfortable as he remembered but he managed to arrive in one piece in the sitting room of their home in Godric’s Hollow. Pepper, who’d been curled up atop the back of his father’s armchair, raising her head and yawned but made no effort to greet them or even any hint she’d noticed they were there.

“Missed you too.” The raven grumbled at the cat.

“Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes.” Lily told him as she disappeared into the kitchen. “Take your things up to your room and change before you come back down, love. And make sure to pack before you head to bed. There won’t be time in the morning.”

“I’ve already got everything together.” He called back, setting Hedwig’s cage atop the lid of his trunk and opening the wire door. The snowy owl hooted in relief and fluttered up onto his shoulder. “All I need to do is remove my school things from my trunk. Should only take about five minutes.”

“That’s five extra minutes you get to sleep.” His father said from his post beside the armchair where he’d taken to bothering the cat. “Keep that in mind when you’re considering putting it off until tomorrow.”

“I’ll get it done before dinner.” Five minutes meant peanuts until you were actually asleep. Harry hefted his trunk in both hands and started towards the stairs.

“You’re able to use magic outside of school now.” James said.

“Just because I can use magic for everything doesn’t mean I should, dad.” Harry said.

“Good boy.” His mother called. 

Hedwig lifted off from his shoulder as soon as he entered his bedroom, fluttering over to her perch. Harry set his trunk down at the foot of his bed and opened the lid of his trunk, quickly gathering his text books and carting them over to the shelf in the corner. Sliding them into place alongside his other books from years before: _Essential Defense Against the Dark Arts_ by Arsenius Jigger; _Advanced Potion Making_ by Libatius Borage; _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ by Newt Scamander. Harry set his potion’s kit atop his desk to be sorted through upon their return from their holiday in Egypt, alongside his telescope and set of scales. His clean cauldron was set inside his closet. His clothing stacked atop his bed.

After pulling his holly wand from the back pocket of his jeans and vanishing the detritus at the bottom of his trunk after a handful of tries (he never had been very good with cleaning spells), the little raven returned his clothing to the trunk and gave Hedwig fresh water and a handful of owl nuts. Hanging his school robes on the knob on his way out the door.

“Just in time, love.” Lily guided a boiling pot of stew onto the table with a careful sweep of her willow wand. “Everything’s sorted for the morning?”

“Yes, Mum.” Harry said, sitting down across from his father. “I’ll be ready to go first thing.”

“If that’s the case then the only thing left to talk about is safety.” With how often his father and his friends acted little different from school boys it was easy to forget that he was one of the British Ministry’s top Aurors. Seeing him look so suddenly serious, hazel eyes stern over his wire rimmed glasses, was odd. “Compared to what Wizards of the ancient world could do, modern Dark Magic is tantamount to parlor tricks and there’s no civilization in history more feared for their black arts than Dynastic Egypt. I’m sure Bill wouldn’t let anything dangerous be left lying around in the part of the tomb they’ve managed to excavate so far, but the burial chamber isn’t something that’s been checked over. I know you’re going to be there with your friends and that boys will be boys, especially when there’s a Malfoy involved, but the past isn’t something to be toyed with and reduced to dares.”

“Have you given Padfoot the same talking to, dear?”

“Remus and I both handled that, yes.”

“’Listen to the Curse Breakers’ and ‘don’t touch anything’.” Harry said, stirring the bowl of stew in front of him in an effort to make it cool down faster. “I don’t really want to end up missing a leg or having wings growing out of the back of my head.” Helpful as having his own pair of working wings might have been for his future Quidditch career he wasn’t about to take a chance with an ancient curse in hopes they’d end up in the right place. “I’ll be good and keep my hands to myself. I’m a lot more worried about Fred and George: they’d probably find it funny if they sprouted extra heads.”

If nothing else, the presence of the Weasley twins would help to keep things interesting.


	2. Cairo

_ The chirring of Nightjars and chirping of crickets spilled in through the palace windows and torches set in brackets along the walls guttered in the wind, perfumed by the anemone and night blooming jasmine grown thick in the sumptuous royal gardens outside. The orange flames popped, shedding golden sparks down onto the pale sandstone tiles as the little raven made his way through the cavernous hallway. Footsteps marked by the tap of his rush sandals and the gentle hiss of the linen shawl-pearlescent and thin as spider’s silk-which cascaded from narrow shoulders. Solid silver wrist and arm bands gleamed against honey colored skin. A silver gorget, strung with emeralds the size of kestrel eggs, lay heavy against his bare chest. _

_ He turned the corner. At the corridor’s far end was a doorway hung with beads of black faience. Guards, each holding spears, stood astride it and kept their eyes directed carefully away from him. They didn’t react as he passed, parting the curtain of beads and slipping through into the room beyond. Dim, lit only by tallow candles and lanterns made from clay pots of burning oil. Incense and perfume left the scent of Susinum hung heavy in the dry air. The little raven stepped out of his rush and leather shoes, curling his toes against the cold stone. Green eyes, cat-like and lined in kohl, fell on the massive bed in the center of the room; the linens which hung from the ceiling, pale as moonlight, fluttered as the dark figure behind them stepped into view. _

_ He sank to his knees as the Pharaoh approached, the pelt of a black leopard hung from strong shoulders and a lion’s tail wrapped around his waist. Crimson eyes, slitted like a serpent’s and shadowed by amethyst powder, devoured his features. The sight of that familiar hunger pooling heat into his belly. Fingers, long and pale, reached towards him. Pulling him back to his feet. Tracing the shape of his lower lip, staining the pads red with the ocher which colored it. _

_ When he spoke Harry couldn’t understand him but he was nonetheless hypnotized by the shapes taken by pale lips. His dream-self responded, tongue forming the same sounds; the same pieces of that alien language. Yet this time, somehow, he recognized what had been said. _

_ “My Pharaoh.” _

_ The ancient King pulled him close. Large hands gripping the swell of his hip and splaying between his shoulder blades. Soft, ravenous mouth descending on his lips. The raven’s hands cupped the Pharaoh’s neck. Gripping fistfuls of his dark brown curls. Tracing the contours of his scarred and muscled chest. _

_ His neck arched back as the elder’s mouth detached from his, his lips left puffy and kiss bruised. Teeth and tongue marked the column of his throat. Claims dropping along his collarbone and shoulders. The gorget came free with the clatter of metal on stone. The bared skin almost instantly mapped over. The Pharaoh purred and the raven answered with a shaky sigh, dragging his fingers once more through brown curls, eyes half-lidded.  _

_ The pale fingers found the piece of white linen wrapped around his waist and tugged. Allowing the fabric to flutter away and leaving the little raven bare before him. Calloused palm and warm skin enveloping his length. Squeezing and stroking. Drawing a keening whine from his parted lips and provoking him to full hardness. Dragging his nail through the slit of the raven’s head. Smearing clear pearls against rosy skin with the pad of his thumb. _

_ The Pharaoh moved with the speed and ease of a snake, lifting his consort in his arms and carrying him behind the linens. Laying his small body atop the bed. His own clothing fell away with a wave of his hand and he crawled atop him. Reclaiming the raven’s mouth. Pressing the other man’s body deeper into the mattress as his fingers slipped into his entrance, three sinking in with ease and prompting a satisfied hiss. _

_ “: _ **_You prepared yourself for me_ ** _.:” The Parseltongue curled between them, his dark tone forming syllables which writhed in the air. He crooked his fingers when the raven attempted to respond, transforming the words into an unintelligible wail. “: _ **_Good boy_ ** _.:” _

_ The Pharaoh removed his fingers and lined himself up with his fluttering entrance. Rolling his hips forward and burying himself to the hilt. The raven arched his back. Head flung back against the rumpled sheets. Voice silenced as the brunet resumed the attention he’d been paying to his mouth. Setting an even rhythm as his consort’s legs wound tight around his waist. Digging his heels into the small of his back to pull him closer. Creaking wood, ragged breaths and the sound of two bodies moving together drowned out the sounds of the nocturnal animals outside. The smell of sweat and sex tinted the air as nails cut bleeding furrows over shoulder blades and muscles rippled beneath smooth skin. Heat at last spread between them, across their stomachs and deep inside the little raven, and the Pharaoh pulled away. Settling beside his quivering form. Tucking him close as their hearts hammered hard. _

_ “: _ **_I love you, Har-ri_ ** _.:” Lips shaped gentle hisses against his temple. “: _ **_Until eternity._ ** _ :” _

Cursing under his breath, Harry threw off his covers and dragged himself out of bed. Light had barely begun to spread through his bedroom window, forming grey puddles on the wooden floor. Hedwig was asleep on her perch with her head tucked beneath one wing, not having been let out to hunt the night before.

From the look of it, he had about an hour before his parents came in to wake him up. Plenty of time to take a shower and throw his boxers in the wash.

Great bloody timing, sexy Pharaoh!

Fishing that day’s clothing out of his trunk and draping it over his arms-Muggle clothing, just to be safe, as he wasn’t certain they’d be staying in the magical district of Cairo-Harry exited his bedroom and ducked into the hall bathroom. Flicking on the light and the warm water before stepping under the stream.

As the water rushed over his shoulders and along his back and stomach Harry looked down at himself. Half expecting to find dark bruises formed into the shape of teeth littering the skin along his upper chest and collar bone. Nothing was there, the pale tan flesh remained unblemished, but as he ran his fingers along his throat he could feel the tender bite marks and the phantom weight of the silver and emeralds which had hung about his neck.

Stepping out of the shower again Harry dried off and redressed, throwing his old boxers into the hamper and turning out the light behind him. Raven hair still slightly damp, he made his way back down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“And here I was thinking I’d get to wake you up this morning.” His father handed him a cup of coffee as he headed towards the counter. “Milk is in the fridge; don’t eat anything. We’re all getting breakfast together in Cairo.”

Harry opened the counter and pulled out another glass before pulling the milk and the orange juice from the fridge. He poured the milk into the coffee and the orange juice into the empty glass before he took both with him back to the table and slumped into his chair.

“Coffee _ and _ orange juice?” James asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Needed something sweet to go with it.” He grumbled, taking a drink of his coffee and grimacing. “Bleck.”

His father snickered. “We do have sugar, you know.”

“Too much work.” Harry said. “It’s too early to expend that much energy. We didn’t even wake up this early for Quidditch Practice under Wood!”

“Well, you have Percy Weasley to thank for this. He’s the one who handled registering the trip and booking our time slot for the International Floo.” James told him. “Something about the time difference between London and Cairo.”

“Which is?”

“Two hours.”

His father laughed when Harry made a show of slumping forwards over the table; his arms landed on the wood with a loud rattle. The little raven huffed. “Well, I’m sure Fred and George have already given the ponce his dues for making us drag our arses out of bed at barely five in the morning.” He said. “Peter will be here soon?”

After a flick of his mahogany wand and a quick Tempus Charm James said “any minute now. Why don’t you go grab Hedwig? And while you’re upstairs tell your mother to stop worrying so much about packing enough first aid supplies: between her and Molly I think we’re better stocked than St. Mungo’s.”

“I will.” Harry drained both his cup of coffee and his cup of juice and stood up with a yawn. “Can you pour me another cup while I’m upstairs?”

“Do you want me to put sugar in it too?”

“That’d be nice. Thanks!” He caught the roll of his father’s hazel eyes before he shuffled back down the hallway and up the stairs. Harry found his mother in the master bedroom, a little pack of potion vials unrolled across the foot of his parents’ bed as she considered and then reconsidered the potions she wanted to take with them. Including second and third vials of Essence of Dittany. Replacing Pepper-Up with Murtlap and then switching them back. “Mum.”

Lily jumped, almost dropping the vial in her hand, and turned to face him. Smiling and pushing her fiery hair back over her shoulder. “Morning, love. I didn’t hear you come in.” She said. “I’m surprised to see you up this early. You’re feeling alright?”

“Fine.” He said. “Woke myself up a bit earlier than I’d have liked but I can probably take a nap a bit later. We’ll have to travel a while before we get to the excavation site even after we get to Cairo.”

“Your father sent you up here?”

Harry nodded. “Between you and Mrs. Weasley he thinks we’ll be alright when it comes to medical supplies. And I think he’s right. You shouldn’t worry so much.”

“Even with all the trouble you get up to?”

He smiled. “I already promised to behave, didn’t I?”

His mother reached out and ruffled his hair, ignoring his half-hearted grumble and efforts to step out of range. “You did.” She said, dropping her arms around his shoulders; even fully grown at seventeen and despite both his parents being at the high end of average height Harry had topped out at just over five feet and stood shorter than most people he knew. At least he’d inherited his mother’s sight along with her eyes, escaping the grip of the glasses that his father had to wear. “I know that you’re an adult now and that I shouldn’t worry so much but I just can’t help myself. I just feel like…”

“Like what?” Harry asked, eyebrows knitting together in concern.

“Like, if I look away for too long, I’ll look back and find you’ve disappeared.” She said. “It’s foolish of me, I know, but I can’t help myself. I think all mothers feel that way about their children, and if I had to trace it back to something I’d say it’s an extension of empty nest syndrome.”

“You and dad don’t want me living here forever, Mum.” Harry said, grinning as his mother hugged him. “And just because I’m going to be finding a job and moving away doesn’t mean I’m never going to visit. Holidays. Sundays. And there’s always letters.”

“I want to hear from you at least once a month no matter what, young man. Do you understand me?” the little raven nodded. “And I want to hear all about whoever the lucky wizard is who manages to catch you. You’d better bring him at least once to dinner before you marry.”

“Mum!” Harry whined. Lily snickered. Voices could be heard on the floor below.

“Looks like Wormtails here.” She said, at last allowing him to squirm away and turning back to the pack of potion vials and rolling it up. “Take Hedwig down and bring your trunk with you. We’ll leave in a few minutes.” 

“Alright.” Before his mother could return to teasing him Harry bounded from the room and back down the hall. Shrinking his trunk with a wave of his wand and slipping it into the pockets of his jeans. Hedwig blinked her amber eyes blearily at him as he approached and, after much coaxing and cajoling, sidled off her perch and onto his arm. “I know it’s early and I’m sorry. I’m tired too.” Harry gently stroked the soft feathers of her back as he exited his room and headed towards the kitchen.

Peter Pettigrew, or ‘Wormtail’ as he’d been called during his school days, was a close friend of his parents. A flaxen haired, watery eyed man with a nervous disposition who had wound up in Gryffindor largely for his admiration of courage rather than his ability to exercise it. At current, he ran a book seller in Diagon Alley: a profession as far removed from conventional dangers as could easily be found.

“H-Harry!” Peter squeaked on catching sight of him. “Congratulations on graduating.”

“Thank you.” He said.

“How is Q-Quidditch going? You were hoping to b-be a professional seeker weren’t you?”

The raven grinned. “Brilliantly.” He said. “I’ve been scouted by the Appleby Arrows, the Falmouth Falcons and the Kenmare Kestrels. At this point it’s just a matter of which team wants me more.”

“That’s my boy!” James slung an arm around Harry’s shoulders. Hedwig hooted in annoyance at being jostled about. “Youngest seeker in a generation! It’s only right that they’re negotiating to get you on board. Give it a few years and you’ll be on the British National Team!”

“Thanks for offering to look after Hedwig.” Harry said. “They have rules about owls over there, apparently, so we can’t take her with us to Cairo.”

“I still don’t understand why you turned down the opportunity to come, Wormtail.” James said. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity: getting to be some of the first inside the burial chamber of a potentially cursed tomb.”

“E-Exactly!” The blonde shuddered as he took Hedwig from Harry. “Previously undiscovered tombs don’t strike me as the s-s-safest places in the world. And the last thing I want is to be chased around by a mummy!”

“I’ve never been in a pyramid before!”

Harry smiled apologetically at him. “Dad’s a little bit excited, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Well, I w-wish you and your mother good luck in controlling him. Remus too. Hopefully they don’t come back switched around.” He said. “I should be getting back. Stay safe, all of you.”

“We’ll be fine, Wormtail. Bill and the other Curse Breakers know what they’re doing.” Lily said, walking into the kitchen. “Are you two ready to go?”

“Yes, Mum.” Harry said.

“Yes dear.” James said.

“We should Floo over to the Ministry to meet up with the Weasleys, Moony and Padfoot. We’ll be late if we don’t.” As Peter headed for the front door with the disgruntled owl Harry followed his parents back into the sitting room to confront once again his age old nemesis: the Floo. 

“We should probably send Harry through first.” His father said, seeming to read the little raven’s mind. “Considering his Floo record.”

“I’m not going to end up in Nocturne Alley again.” He grumbled, though in reality that was precisely what he was afraid would happen. Pulling a pinch of emerald powder from the little pot sitting on the mantle, he tossed it into the hearth before he stepped in himself. Ashes crunching underneath the rubber soles of his trainers. “British Ministry of Magic.”

Green flames flared up around him, the world spun violently and then the next thing Harry knew he was tumbling forward out of another hearth. Luckily, rather than face planting on the polished floor, he was caught by two pairs of waiting arms.

“Hello Harry!” Fred said, grinning.

“We knew to expect you to take a bit of a tumble.” George said as they hauled him upright. “Your inspiring grace never ceases to amaze us.”

“A bird on the ground.”

“A penguin out of water.”

“Majestic!”

“I’m glad that at least someone thinks so.” He said, the twins snorting as his parents emerged from the Floo behind him, his mother holding Pepper in her arms. “Now I know I don’t have to be totally embarrassed.”

“Happy to be of service.” The twins chorused; still holding him by the arms, they began dragging Harry across the atrium’s floor. “This way to the International Floo! Everyone else is already there.”

“Oh, don’t manhandle the poor boy!” Mrs. Weasley said on catching sight of Harry, grinning, slung between the twins like a doll. “Hello, Harry dear. How are you?”

“Good, Mrs. Weasley.” He said. The twins had let go of him and draped an arm around each of his shoulders instead.

“’Good’ he says.” George snorted. “More like bloody brilliant!”

“We heard about how you’re being scouted by three professional teams.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“Next thing we know you’ll be playing in the Quidditch World Cup!”

“I’m sure you’re happy to be graduated, eh Harry?” Arthur asked, shaking his head at the antics of the twins.

“Yeah.” He said. “It’s really nice to be a ‘real adult.”

“It’s not as great as you’re thinking now, Prongslet.” Sirius said as he and Remus walked over. “Responsibility is a ruddy nightmare.”

“That all depends on who you ask, Padfoot.” The werewolf said, rolling his tawny eyes. “Some people are prepared to deal with such things.”

“’Responsibility’ is overrated.” His father chuckled, bounding up to his friends. This comment led to raucous agreement from Fred and George. “This trip is going to be awesome; a few days spent at the dig site, a tour of a 4000 year old previously undiscovered tomb and then a week of summer revelling; just like old times.”

“Never too old to party like you’re seventeen!” His godfather and father exchanged high fives.

“When are we meeting with your brother?” Harry looked over at Ron and Ginny who stood nearby.

“Tomorrow.” Ginny told him. “Apparently he’s not able to get away from the excavation site until then. We’re staying in Cairo overnight, in the same accommodations we’re using later. A resort in the magical district.”

“I could care less when we’re meeting up with Bill. All I want is some bloody breakfast.” Ron said. 

Ginny rolled her eyes. Harry snorted, grinning at his best friend. “Since when has that been new?” he asked. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been ruled by the decisions of your stomach instead of your brain.”

“Could be ruled by something worse.” Ginny muttered, half under her breath.

Percy appeared a moment later, trotting towards them with his horn-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. “Our time slots started; the International Floo is now connected with the Egyptian Ministry.” He said. “We have ten minutes to go through before it closes off again.”

“Quidditch stars first.” Fred said as he and his brother seized Harry once more under the arms.

“By all means, Harry, blaze a trail.” George exchanged a wicked grin with Fred and shoved the little wizard through.

Harry spun out the other side, attempted to catch his balance, tripped over his feet and landed with a heavy thump against a stone railing. Directly below him was a massive water feature, its surface dotted with blue lotuses and its bottom decorated by a tile mosaic of a winged scarab with the sun in its jaws. Pushing himself upright and raising his head he found himself looking out over the atrium of the Egyptian Ministry of Magic. The circular room’s cavernous ceiling was dyed a deep azure and inset with false stars which formed the constellations. Dead center rose a massive statue of white marble: a towering woman with a staff of papyrus in one hand and an ankh in the other, a throne-shaped headdress atop her pleated hair. Engraved at the statue’s base were the words  _ Isis, Goddess of Magic _ .

“Bloody hell.” Ron said as he came out of the Floo, quickly followed by his sister. “Look at this place!”

“It’s beautiful.” Ginny said.

“Yeah.” Harry agreed as the rest of their party spilled out behind them. “It is.”

“Alright you lot, I’m sure everyone is hungry.” Mrs. Weasley said, bustling towards them. “We’re going to head over to Eirafa Alley and drop off our luggage in our rooms before grabbing breakfast.”

“ _ Food _ !” Ron groaned, instantly forgetting all about their surroundings.

Harry brought up the rear of the group, staring up at the statue and the ceiling.

The city of Cairo was vibrant and hot, even that early in the day. He could smell spices, diesel fuel and sand and hear the distant growl of engines as the little group moved on foot through a dusty narrow street which stood somewhat removed from the city’s heart. Much like the entrance to Diagon Alley, the entrance to Eirafa Alley was hidden behind a drinking establishment: he couldn’t read the sign outside so he didn’t know the name of the building, but found himself quite taken by the elegant flourishes of the script it was written in.

Eirafa Alley was lined with a number of shops and buildings. At its center was an open air bazaar, its merchants gearing up for another day of hawking their wares and the awnings of the stalls fluttered in the wind looking like the colorful dorsal fins of absurd fish. Raised troughs of clear cool water built of sturdy blocks of golden sand stone bisected the walkways at even intervals. Stands of towering palms bent over rooftops, their dark green plumes spreading bands of shadow across the uneven ground.

The place they were staying was a grouping of small buildings at the far end of the alley passed the bazaar, encircling a lush garden of fruit trees and flowering bushes. They’d rented four apartments- one for Harry and his family, one for Remus and Sirius, and two for the Weasleys-(where Draco was staying Harry wasn’t certain)-but the size of the apartments left the little raven thinking the lot of them could relatively comfortably have fit into one in a pinch.

The rooms were a wash of luxurious color; Harry’s bedroom filled with a massive bed, ornate furniture and a swarm of overstuffed pillows draped in linens dyed blood red, powder blue and satin gold. Below the window, drenched in sunlight, was a daybed which Pepper immediately claimed. A small fountain mounted in the corner lent the space the soothing ambience of trickling water.

“Do my parents not have a daybed in their room?” he asked the curled up feline as he removed and resized his trunk. Pepper mewed at him and started purring when he scratched behind her ears. “It’s funny how I suddenly become your favorite person in the world the minute I’m directly associated with something you want.”

The cat rolled onto her back in a demand to have her belly rubbed. 

Harry couldn’t help but wonder what Pepper would be like once she figured out the Egyptians used to worship cats.

“Come on, love.” His mother called from the apartment’s doorway. “The others are waiting on us for breakfast.”

“Coming.” He said.

Ron had already eaten his way through three portions by the time they joined the rest of their party at the restaurant. Looking over the available selections Harry picked up a plate of pita bread filled with what vaguely resembled hummus and a glass of water and claimed a seat to the left of the twins.

“Not exactly an English breakfast, but that doesn’t seem to bother your brother much.” Harry said, smirking. “Do you think he’s even tasting what he’s eating?”

“No.” Ginny said from across the table. “Tasting your food requires not eating like a snake at light speed.”

The twins snorted. Harry picked up his first piece of bread and examined it. “Do you know what this is?”

“Short of good? Not sure.” She said. “Some sort of bean, I think. Try it.”

Slightly grainy with an earthy, bitter but not unpleasant flavor. Harry wasn’t certain quite what to make of it. “It’ll probably take me a few days to get used to the food.” He said. “But it’s not bad.”

“Since when have you been so picky?”

“Not picky.” Harry shoved the rest of the piece of bread into his mouth.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of wondrous impulsivity; with nothing specific on their time tables the twins, Harry, Ginny and Ron found themselves with nothing more important to do than explore. And the first order of business had been to hunt down and drag away the only weakly protesting Draco before they’d commenced running rampant through the streets. Perusing the bazaar. Window shopping in the stores. Speaking with amused locals. Making a brief stop for lunch and eating something called Koshary: a strange mix of rice, macaroni, lentils and tomato sauce which tasted far better than it had any right to. The sun was setting by the time they headed back, night staining everything around them in shades of heavy grey and purple. Bidding his friends farewell and good night, the promise of ancient mysteries awaiting them in the morning, Harry stumbled exhausted back into his room. Pepper had since vacated her perch atop the now darkened sun bed: where in the apartment she was Harry hadn’t a clue. He dropped onto the sun bed himself and opened the window.

The sun was only barely visible on the horizon now, painting a thin haze of red along the joining line of sky and sand. Beyond the city skyline, across the Nile, the hulking forms of the Giza pyramids were cut in black against the winking stars. When the wind blew in through the window, cool with night, Harry swore that he felt long fingers caress his jaw line; could smell cinnamon and myrrh and tallow smoke and hear the gentle rumble of a voice he couldn’t understand.

Leaning his back against the day bed’s arm, he watched as the last traces of red faded from the sky.


	3. The Tomb of the Serpent King

“My face is not a pillow, Pepper!” Harry’s voice was drowned out by soft paws and motor boat purring. The cat mewed at him innocently, her brown tail twitching against his collar bone. Thoroughly awake now that the cat had decided he was more comfortable than any of the various pillows and furniture in the apartment (how she’d even gotten back into his room Harry didn’t know; last he remembered he’d shut his bedroom door before going to sleep the night before) the little raven reached up with both hands to lift her off of him. The bed creaked as Harry dropped her onto the sheets beside him. She tried to crawl back onto his chest but he sat up before she could, yawning and spitting out some of her brown hair as he stroked a hand down her back. “Merlin, who needs alarms with you around?”

Yellow eyes swiveled up towards him and the cat meowed again.

“Yeah, yeah. I need to get up. I know.”

Pepper flopped onto her side in the warm divot he’d left on the bed as soon as he got to his feet. The raven rolled his eyes and shook his head before he raised his arms above his head and stretched. Joints popping. His shirt rucked up slightly along his waist line to reveal a narrow swath of golden skin.

“One good thing that can be said about Wizarding versus Muggle transportation,” even if Muggle means were, at least in his mind, more comfortable, “it's that Floos, portkeys, and Apparition don’t result in things like jet lag.”

A loud purring was his only answer.

Harry opened his trunk, dug out fresh clothing and changed before shoving his Holly wand into its usual place and trotting out to join his parents at the restaurant.

“There he is.” Remus said as Harry dropped into the seat beside him. “Nervous?”

“A little.” He admitted, selecting a plate of fruit and beginning to pick at it. He knew he needed to eat, they’d be out at the tomb for the next day or so and food there was likely to be scarce and utilitarian, but it was difficult to force himself. “But not because I’ll be opening a tomb. People have always…looked at me sideways whenever they heard me use Parseltongue.”

“The Curse Breakers will be too focused on what your ability can get them access to to care that it’s supposedly a sign of a Dark Wizard.” Sirius said from his other side. “Everything is going to be fine.”

He certainly hoped so. “How are we getting there?”

“Flying.” His father told him. Harry perked up. “We have to take a boat ride down the Nile a ways first, but we’re going to meet up with Bill and then take something called Axex over to the excavation site.”

“Axex?” the raven repeated. “What is an Axex?” it sounded more like a weapon than anything rideable.

“A magical creature native to Egypt.” Remus told him. “I’m sure Hagrid would be a better authority on them than I would as they’re not classified as ‘Dark’ but as far as I’m aware they’re relatives of Griffins and Hippogriffs.”

“We’ll find out eventually.” Harry took a sip of water.

“That’s the spirit.” Sirius said. “I hope you’re planning to join us at least once in drinking, Harry. You’re of age now: being blind drunk is an experience everyone should have at least once in their life.”

“Make good choices.” Lily glared at his Godfather.

Remus sighed. “If he goes out with them I’ll go too, just to make sure Harry doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

“Thank you, Moony.” His mother said. “Is that all you’re going to eat, Harry?”

The little raven shrugged, pushing the half-eaten plate of fruit away from him. “I’m not really hungry, I guess.”

“Take the orange with you, at least.”

Harry sighed but dutifully picked up the fruit, shrunk it and slipped it into his pocket before rising to his feet with the rest of his group.

His father checked the time again and said. “We should head out where the boat’s supposed to pick us up; the others should already be there.”

“If we’re late we can always swim.” Sirius said, bounding ahead like an excitable dog.

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” Remus said. “Crocodiles live in the Nile River, Padfoot.”

“It’s not the crocodiles you really need to worry about,” Harry said. “It’s the hippopotamuses: Hermione made sure to tell us all about it.”

“And what did she tell you, Prongslet?”

“That they’re the most dangerous animals in Africa.” The little raven fought down the urge to smirk and forced his face to maintain a dead pan. “And that they kill people for sport.”

He walked calmly past his Godfather, who’d skipped to a stop in surprise. “He’s joking, right?” Sirius looked over at James and Remus in turn in hopes either of them would reveal the fact that it was indeed a joke. “Right? _ Harry!” _

He supposed his Godfather didn’t need it on his conscious that that little fact was true. Or, at least, true enough.

The staircase down to the Nile was made of the same honey colored stone which had by now become familiar and lined with statues of Criosphinxes. The river itself was wide and deep, slow flowing and, unlike the Thames, dark blue in color. The boat which waited for them was a covered amalgam of metal and white railings. It looked strangely Muggle; out of place roped to Eirafa Alley’s dock. It bobbed, slowly, up and down atop the Nile’s surface.

The man who met them on the wooden dock was about the same height as Percy with dark eyes and skin like amber. He spoke with the adults as Harry followed Ron, Ginny and the twins up the rattling chrome ramp onto the boat. The little raven heard the twins chuckling about the ram-lion statues and Ginny commented on her father’s fascination with the ship they’d be sailing on for the next two hours only dimly. Wandering away towards the back of the boat; to the uncovered portion left in full sun. Leaning against the coal railing. Looking out over the water, hypnotized by the swirling pattern of the sapphire current. His eyes fell half-lidded, then fully shut.

_ The thin shawl rippled against the sun warmed skin of his back, caught in a cool breeze. The gentle lapping of the Nile’s flow against the wooden hull of the royal barque lulling him into the comfortable half-state between sleep and waking. Where the weight of his sense of self had blurred into water and earth and sky and it felt like he was floating. _

_ Long fingers buried themselves in his hair. Dragging through the messy raven locks. Following down the column of his spine: along his neck then down his back. Slipping beneath the shawl. Kneading deep into the large muscles of his shoulders. _

_ Malachite shadowed green eyes fluttered open and he raised his head from where it had been pillowed on his arms. His Pharaoh grinned down at him and continued his administrations. He spoke, the rumble of his voice as soothing as it was incoherent, and the raven’s body moved in response. Rising onto all fours. Stretching, cat-like, atop the day bed where he’d lain before getting to his feet. _

_ He was pulled close, briefly held in strong arms, the scent of Susinum and something sharp and reptilian drowning him where his face pressed into the crook of the larger man’s neck, and then released again. The Pharaoh was dressed as Harry remembered: leopard’s pelt, lion’s tail, pleated linen wrapped around his waist. In his hand he held a black scepter: a coiled cobra clutching a fist sized ruby in its mouth. It clunked against the wooden deck of the boat as he walked, leading his consort to a covered gathering of ornate furniture and a table laid out with food. _

_ That sly hunger had come across the face of the ancient king again and his consort, unlike Harry who was merely along for the ride, seemed to understand precisely what it meant. Ocher stained lips forming into a smile, he stretched himself across the golden settee. His head falling in the Pharaoh’s lap. _

_ The brunet resumed his idle petting, his other hand feeding the raven bits of dates and honeyed bread. Crimson eyes drinking in the curl of his pink tongue as he licked the sweetness from the pads of his fingers. Reveling in the gentle pressure against his scalp. _

_ The Pharaoh lifted a golden goblet filled with sweet wine and took a deep draught, molding his lips against the smaller male’s a moment later. Thinner, pale tan fingers reached up to cup the brunet’s sculpted cheek. Sucking his tongue into his mouth as the larger man picked up a bowl of honey and poured a trail along the raven’s golden collar bones. Leaning down to follow with his tongue. _

“Is he dead?” Draco’s drawling voice dragged him back to the waking world. Green eyes fluttered open to find the blue water of the Nile a fair bit closer to his face than he last remembered. “I think he’s dead. No one sleeps bent in half over a boat’s metal railing.”

Harry reached for the railing behind him and pushed himself upright. “Sorry, Draco.” He said, turning to face his friends: Ron, Ginny, the twins and Draco had all gathered in a half circle behind him. The blonde stood with raised eyebrows and his arms crossed over his chest. “But you’re not going to get that lucky today.”

“Sadly.” Malfoy snorted.

“You probably have bruises.” Ginny said as Harry leaned his back against the railing he’d formerly been folded across. “That didn’t look very comfortable.”

“It wasn’t.” Harry admitted, massaging his chest where his ribs had pressed against the metal. “I’m not sure how I even managed to fall asleep like that: didn’t think I was so tired that staring at a river for too long would put me to sleep.”

“If you’re going to turn yourself into crocodile bait, Potter, wait until  _ after _ you’ve done what the lot of us were dragged here along with you to do.” Draco said. “We’re getting off in about another minute.”

“You alright, mate?” Ron asked as the others moved away.

“Yeah.” Harry told him, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes. “Even after seven years of class and Quidditch drills I’m not used to waking up early. Nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so.” Ron said as they headed back towards the front of the boat. “My Mum brought enough Pepper-Up to make a Horntail sleep deprived if you need some.”

“Thanks.” Harry said. “I’ll keep that in mind but I think I’m good.”

“Are you sure? You look a little bit red in the face.”

Red in the face? After having discovered the fact that his Sexy Pharaoh had both a food kink and a feeding kink he’d bet he was. “Head rush.”

At least the weird position he’d wound up in had some uses in providing cover.

The little river boat puttered over to the bank of the Nile and let down its ramp with a metallic thunk. Atop the sloping rise of mud stood Bill, grinning ear to ear with his red hair on fire in the light of the sun. The fang hanging from his ear clattered softly as he stepped forward and extended a hand. “Harry, good to see you.”

“You too.” He accepted the handshake with a smile. Green eyes lingered meaningfully on the ponytail the other wore. “I like your hair. Taking bets on how long it’s going to last now that your Mum has seen it?”

“Fred and George beat you to the punch,” the eldest Weasley informed him with a sigh. “Twelve Galleons on three days. Care to add to the pot?”

“Five on a week!” Ginny called from over his shoulder.

“I would have,” he said, “but Gin just stole mine.”

“Welcome to the world of having a little sister.” Bill sounded mildly exasperated, but a moment later his expression shifted into relief. “Thanks for agreeing to do this, by the way. I don’t think we’d ever have managed to get around that bloody door if you hadn’t: whatever the Egyptians used, it worked.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He said as they reached the crest of the bank and stepped up onto level ground. The Sahara stretched ahead of them into an endless red carpet. “It’s nice to know being a Parselmouth has some use beyond marking me as a closeted Dark Lord.”

“That’s an unfortunate British stereotype for which Slytherin is largely to blame. The whole ‘sign of Dark Magic’ angle is utter bollocks.” Bill told him. “The Ancient Egyptians for example, since we’re here, didn’t pass judgement on Parseltongue itself but rather what source it came from. They had a bit of a…strange relationship with snakes. Ra himself was thought to be a Parselmouth able to grant the gift to mortals. But so could the Demon Apophis, the serpent responsible for eating the sun every night.”

“So I’m in the company of the Sun God?” the corners of Harry’s lips twitched. “I guess I feel a bit better now.”

The Curse Breaker clapped him on the shoulder and turned to the rest of the assembled group. “Alright, the Axex we’ll be taking over are right this way. It’ll be about an hour’s flight before we reach the excavation site. We’ll head into the tomb as soon as we arrive, there’s something I want to show the lot of you before we move on to the Royal Burial Chamber.”

“You’re sure that’s what it is?” Ginny asked as they followed her older brother away from the river. “How can you be sure when you haven’t gotten into it yet?”

“Well, we’re not  _ sure _ precisely,” Bill admitted, “but we do know from what we’ve found so far that we  _ are _ dealing with a Pharaoh’s tomb, and judging off of tombs from similar times (which admittedly aren’t many as the period the tombs seems to be from is the unstable transition between the Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom, to such a point that this might well be the first structure ever built using stone in the world) the sarcophagus should be on the other side of the wall which we need Harry to get through. Here we are.”

Axex, as it turned out, were horse-sized avians with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. The nearest one turned its head towards him, fixing Harry in the sharp gaze of an amber eye, and clicked its curved beak.

“Hey look, Draco,” the little raven snickered “it’s Buck-.”

“ _ Don’t! Mention! The Hippogriff! Potter!” _

A chorus of laughter went up in response.

“If you’ve dealt with a Hippogriff then you know how to go about approaching one of these.” Bill said. “Remember to keep eye contact and not to move too quickly.”

“Why don’t you demonstrate what you’ve learned in Care of Magical Creatures, Harry?” Fred nudged him closer to the glaring Axex. “We heard all about your show with Buckbeak!”

“Indeed, oh rising Quidditch star, show us how it’s done.” George joined his brother in shuffling Harry forwards.

“Alright, I will. Let go.” Extracting himself from their grasp with a roll of his eyes. “Just don’t push me any closer, I don’t want to end up mauled.”

Draco stuck his tongue out at him in a move which was entirely undignified. Harry reciprocated before turning his full attention to the Axex.

Keeping his gaze locked on the narrowed amber eyes, the little raven dared to take a final step forwards before bending at the waist. The Axex hissed and rustled its wings, then dipped its head in return. Permission to approach was not, apparently, permission to touch because when he tried to pat its beak Harry almost lost his thumb.

There were no saddles strapped to any of the Axex, leaving them with no choice but to scramble up onto their backs as best they could. Harry, who was the shortest of the group, had the most trouble out of all of them. But once he finally got himself onto the Axex’s back things shaped up for him despite Draco’s (partially) good natured jeering and they were soon quite comfortably in the air. The sun beat down atop them, warming his back and reflecting off the golden feathers of the massive wings to either side of him. The desert sand rushed by beneath them, dunes rising and falling like the armored back of a crocodile.

The earth dropped suddenly out from beneath them into a massive hole, the ragged sides bolted with wooden walkways and with the pallid point of a three sided pyramid jutting from the sand like a giant’s fist. The Axex he was riding shrieked and swooped low, landing lightly near the crumbling edge; allowing Harry off onto the scorching sand. A small grouping of white research tents had been erected behind where they now stood, fluttering sharply in the arid wind.

“Alright you lot, follow me.” Bill called, starting down the shambolic, thrown-together walkway which didn’t look capable of supporting a snail. Just looking at it Harry was inclined to think the thing would disintegrate if it was breathed on incorrectly. “Watch your step and don’t stray too close to the edge.”

“This thing looks like a disaster waiting to happen!” The raven heard Percy hiss under his breath.

“How did you find this?” his mother asked, the walk way creaking beneath their feet at a volume which was only describable as worrisome. “It looks like it was buried in the sand.”

“A lot of monuments in this country have been consumed by the Sahara. The desert moves. And after forty six centuries, a lot gets buried.” Bill said. “The Muggles have some sort of scanning technology which they use, along with chance and old fashioned archeology, to uncover the traces the past has left behind. Gringotts has a magical equivalent but I’m not able to say more than that.”

“Classified?” Remus snickered.

“Something like that.”

“Don’t pyramids normally have four sides?” Harry asked. “Why does this one only have three?”

“Can’t say for sure. It may have had a purpose. It may have simply been an older design which was eventually changed.” Bill said as they reached the bottom of the ramp. Harry’s feet sank into the sand. He felt the heat bleed into his trainers. Three other men were standing between them and a dark opening in the pyramid’s face. They approached once they caught sight of them. “These are my colleagues: Rayner Galli, Windsor Reeves and Cade Blair.”

“This is the Parselmouth?” Rayner was nearly the size of Hagrid with copper colored hair. Looking Harry up and down, he whistled through his crooked teeth. “Bloody hell. When you said he looked like the mural we didn’t think you were serious Weasley. But if you put him in clothing from back then he’d look like he walked right off the wall.”

“You’re going to show it to them before you have him open the door?” Cade asked.

“Kind of hard not to.” Windsor pointed out. “It’s only etched into the wall in full color in the only hallway leading to the door.”

“If you expected me to pass up the opportunity to show Harry the story of Har-ri you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.” Bill turned his attention back to them and said “we’ve gone over all the passages we’ll be using with a fine toothed comb and all curses and booby traps left waiting for grave robbers to stumble on have been removed or disabled so there’s no reason to be worried about falling into one. Just be mindful of the amount of noise you’re making while we’re down there: even stone can get to be unstable after so much time has passed and we don’t want to cause a collapse.”

Lighting the tip of his wand, Bill ducked into the dark opening. Swallowing the sudden surge of nerves which threatened to overwhelm him, Harry drew his own wand and followed.

The passageway was claustrophobic and slanted, its ceiling marbled with a concerning mesh of cracks. The walls almost brushed his shoulders on either side, the pale light of his wand spreading across the images and hieroglyphs which had been etched into the stone ages before. Birds. People. Gods and monsters. 

The shift of focus was sudden enough that Harry noticed it without it being pointed out: in the midst of the telling of whatever story the walls had been depicting up until then the images had been stripped and etched over with something else, the stone beneath the figures of a familiar Pharaoh and his raven consort still bore the scars of the wild chisel.

Reaching up to run careful fingers across the reliefs, Harry couldn’t help but think  _ I don’t remember him being so triangular. _ A result of the medium being stone no doubt. The little wizard could clearly recall the smooth slopes of broad shoulders and the chorded muscle of strong arms; the squareness of his jaw and the cheekbones which could have cut glass.

“Uncanny, isn’t it?”

Harry jumped, blinking rapidly as he retracted his hand. “Yeah.” He said. “And his name, too; Har-ri sounds awfully similar to…” he trailed off, the contents of his conversations with Dumbledore and Draco running through his mind. The little raven shuddered. “Who was he?”

“The dearly beloved royal consort of a tyrant. A Pharaoh named Ta-hem. We’ve taken to calling him Tom: a bit less of a mouthful.” Bill said. “At first we were confused as to why the typical depictions of a Pharaoh’s journey to the afterlife would be interrupted to include this tale instead. Why it appeared as if it were a sudden revision, made just before this tomb was sealed off and left to the mercy of the desert. Then we translated the hieroglyphs and made sense of the depictions and realized it was the tale of the last years of both their lives. How much do you know about ancient Egyptian mythology?”

“Um…” Harry’s eyes panned over the engraved wall, taking in the images of courting and warfare and death. “They worshiped cats?”

Rayner snorted from the rear of the party. “Well informed, this one.”

Bill cracked a smile. “The Egyptians worshiped many animals in connection to their Gods. Cats were connected to Mafdet and Bastet and seen as the Guardians of their underworld, Duat.” He said. “The Pharaoh, at the time, was a despot who had made a deal with Apophis for immortality in exchange for the slaughter of his family and the souls of his ancestors. He’d stolen his throne from his father by violence at sixteen and ruled with an iron fist, holding Egypt in a reign of terror. But when he laid eyes on Har-ri, said to be so beautiful no mortal could bear to look upon him directly, he fell in love. Attending to him with a devotion termed ‘worshipful’ by his subjects, he could deny him nothing and Har-ri used his power over the Pharaoh to make life for his subjects easier.”

“For a decade the Kingdom flourished despite clashes with rival empires, until an assassination plot was hatched: aiming to shatter the Pharoah’s will to fight, they targetted Har-ri. But rather than break the man as his enemies had intended it drove the Pharaoh mad with rage, the last of his sanity snapping. He preserved his consort’s body in honey until Har-ri’s tomb was completed and brought the full wrath of his army upon the Kingdom responsible. Killing not just soldiers but civilians. Anyone who crossed his path. His own men. Using their blood to again invoke Apophis and make a second deal, this time for a ritual which would bring his consort back to life.”

“But Ta-hem’s own priests-who may well have been scheming against him for quite some time by then-turned on him and interrupted the ritual, cutting out the Pharaoh’s tongue so he could not curse them and mummifying him alive. What was meant to be his tomb instead became his prison.”

“And you want to  _ open it _ ?” Ron demanded, wide eyed.

“Relax.” Cade drawled. “No matter how well versed in Dark Magic and Curses the Ancient Egyptians were, nothing can survive 4600 years locked in a box. Never mind having their organs removed on top of it. ‘Immortal’ or not.”

Eyeing the image of his Pharaoh’s imprisonment, Harry shuddered and looked away. “Where’s the door?”

Picking up on his tone, Bill nodded and started moving down the hallway again. “Just down here.”

The slanting passage terminated in a doorway which had been wedged shut with a stone slab and a bronze statue of a coiled cobra. Etched into its spread hood were squiggly symbols that stood in stark contrast to the Hieroglyphs filling the rest of the tomb.

“It’s definitely Parselscript.” Harry said, squinting at the letters until they morphed into discernable English.

“Does it say how to open it?” 

“No. It’s a warning.” He said. “About the ‘Son of Apophis’ and the danger of releasing him. It probably opens the same way the Chamber of Secrets did.”

“And how was that?” Windsor asked.

“Simple.” The raven looked squarely at the statue and hissed  _ “: _ **_Open_ ** _.:” _

The statue ground to life with the clatter of metal on stone, unwinding from its coiled position and disappearing into a small hole near the floor. Only a bare slab of rock was left behind which the four Curse Breakers shifted aside with ease.

“We’ll make sure there’s nothing too nasty waiting to be stepped on in there.” Bull told them as the other three vanished through the door. “You’ll be free to come in once it's cleared.”

“Hurry up!” Fred and George called after their brother. “We don’t care about ending up with legs where our arms are and arms where our legs are! We just want to see the Pharaoh! After being trapped in a box for so long I’m sure he’d appreciate a couple pranks.”

“Maybe you two can be the new royal monkeys.” Draco drawled.

“Royal monkeys?” they exchanged glances. “What a marvelous idea for a career goal, Malfoy! What would you be? The Pharaoh’s ferret?”

“He can be responsible for setting up the wedding.” Ginny snickered.

“I’m sure ‘Tom’ will want to get things moving along quickly between him and Harry.”

“Careful, Ms. Weasley,” James grinned as his wife rolled her eyes, “Lily here has made her thoughts on our son marrying a Pharaoh rather plain.”

Bill reappeared in the doorway before anything else could be said, excitement etched into every facet of his face. “Everything’s clear.” He said. “You’re not going to believe this.”


	4. The Son of Apophis

“Bloody hell.”

The floor of the tomb slanted downward at a gentler angle than the passage had outside, shadowed and paved in darker stone. The ceiling was supported by kneeling statues of Ibis-headed men holding tilted bowls which overflowed with a thick metallic liquid; they fell into etched divots on the floor and tumbled down into the reservoir at the far end of the room from which a tangle of tarnished chains emerged, clutched in the clawed hands of a circle of statues with jackal-like heads. Instead of treasure and offerings the walls were lined with drifts and bones and broken weapons feet deep. It looked more like something out of a nightmare than Harry ever would have expected. ‘Prison’ indeed.

“What’s dripping from the bowls?” Ginny asked, eyeing another silvery droplet as it tumbled away. “Some sort of potion?”

“Potion?” Rayner snorted. “That’s just mercury. Don’t walk where it can drip on you: it’s poisonous.”

“Why is it here?” Draco demanded as they cautiously spread out and began to investigate the chamber. “There’s obviously some sort of replication charm on those bowls or it wouldn’t still be dripping so there has to be a reason.”

“The Ancient Egyptians believed mercury to hold the power to prevent Dark energy from escaping.” Bill said. “They used it to surround ritual sites and concentrate their magic or imprison Dark creatures or objects deemed too dangerous to be let free. They thought of Ta-hem as a demon and must have feared he’d somehow escape without that extra measure of protection so they submerged his sarcophagus in it.”

“Weasley.” Cade stood in front of a low stone shelf at the far end of the room, pointing at a group of stone jars topped with animal heads. “There’s five of them.”

“What?” with an expression of confusion on his face, Bill headed towards where the other Curse Breaker was waiting. Harry continued forward along the walkway, stepping up to the base of one of the statues which held the chains. 

“Thoth and…Anubis?”

“That’s Set, mate.” Ron said. “Don’t you remember those pictures Hermione showed us? His ears and face are different: I only remember because I thought he was cool.”

Pointed, almost rabbit-like ears. A long curved snout with stone lips peeled back into a snarl. Forked tail curled about its ankles. Something about the statues, no doubt assisted by the gloomy chill of the tomb and the fact they were surrounded with the skeletons of who knew how many people made his skin break out in goosebumps and raised the hairs along the back of his neck. The little raven inched a bit further until he was standing on the very lip of the reservoir, holding the thick cold chain nearest him clutched in one fist for support. Looking down into the rippling, silver liquid which gleamed in shades of blue and green beneath the light of his wand. His own reflection stared back at him, distorted by the smooth surface. He leaned closer.

The worn soles of his trainers slipped and sent him toppling forward with a yelp of surprise. Clutching onto the chain for dear life and praying the ancient stone making up the statue and the tarnished metal making up the rungs would hold against his weight. The slack of the chain hissed out with a clattering splash, flinging mercury in all directions, and then finally came to a jarring halt which left his toes barely dangling above the pool. But the reaction he’d unwittingly put in motion wasn’t over yet.

Hidden winches and levers engaged with a piercing whine and the thick liquid beneath him began to churn. More and more of the chains emerged from the pool as the statues slid back. Dragging Harry with them up onto solid ground and pulling the Pharaoh’s coffin into the air for the first time in centuries.

The little raven dropped onto his bum on the stone, palms splayed across cold ancient bricks. The sarcophagus was formed of the same black metal as the serpent scepter he’d seen the man holding on the deck of the royal barque and glittered with blood-drop stones. Mercury dripped sluggishly from the chains, coffin and the platform it sat on, falling back into the reservoir with dull, wet plunks. Ron had scrambled over to him, wide eyed, as the four Curse Breakers hurried over.

“You alright, mate?” he asked, concerned. “You almost fell in.”

“Fine.” His heart was thudding against his sternum, his knuckles were stretched white around his wand and his palms were reddened and slightly raw where he’d gripped the metal but aside from that he was unharmed. Harry pushed himself up onto his feet, eyes still on the coffin, and ignored the fact that he was shaking. “I slipped on the edge is all. It’s a lucky thing I was already hanging onto that chain because, otherwise, I’d have gone in for a swim.”

It’d be just his danger-prone luck to end up swimming in a puddle of toxic metal which was who knew how deep. Thankfully that fate had been only narrowly avoided.

“He gets the chamber open and brings up the sarcophagus.” Windsor muttered, shaking his head as he trotted to a stop beside where Harry stood. “Where did you find this luck charm and can we bring him along on any other expeditions?”

“You’d be better off asking my parents how they met his. I’ve known Harry for almost his entire life.” Bill smiled at the raven as he passed. “He does tend to be a bit luckier than most, but recklessness has to be tempered somehow. Nature finds a way.”

Ignoring the fact that he was being discussed like a specimen in an evolution book, the young wizard looked back up at the sarcophagus. “How are you going to get that down?”

“We have our ways, kid. Don’t worry about it.”

Wands came out and a series of spells were cast, the platform being tugged around and lowered at last onto the floor. With a series of loud cracks the lid came free and was laid on the stone. Everyone tensed, all eyes resting on the now open sarcophagus and expecting the man inside to lurch upwards and attack them. When nothing happened, Harry moved forwards and peered inside.

He regretted it almost immediately and flinched back. Harry had seen mummies before in museums and was prepared for the old bandages and leathered skin of an ancient man lying calmly in a stone box, but that wasn’t what he found. ‘Mummified alive’ hadn’t been an exaggeration: the body was twisted up and coiled about in its bandages like a wounded snake; hands, withered to skeletal claws, raised and frozen mid-scratch against the bottom of the once sealed lid; the sunken features of the face stretched into a horrific scream. How long had he been alive in there, tarred eviscerated and tied in gauze? Had he bled to death? Suffocated? Starved? What must his last moments have been like?

Harry didn’t love the man, felt only vaguely connected to him, but almost a year of vivid memory-dreams filled with intimacy and devotion had left him feeling at least a faint affection for the Pharaoh. It was love and grief that had led the man to this, and a vile mix of pity and disgust at the evidence of such brutality left the little wizard feeling ill. A punishment from an age long passed where ‘mercy’ wasn’t a concept that was well understood. How often had things like this happened? The smell of dust, cloth and the dried flowers the body’s empty cavity had been stuffed with made his head swim and his eyes water.

At least he wasn’t the only one looking some shade of horrified by the contents of the coffin. Ginny refused to look in the direction of the body. Draco was pale and Ron green in the face. The raven forcibly swallowed down the urge to vomit and took a few deep breaths through his mouth in an effort to lessen the smell.

“I think you and Cade ought to take them back up, Bill.” Windsor said. “Take the jars with you and start trying to figure out why there’s a fifth one. Rayner and I will handle documenting things in here in case there’s any other artifacts Gringotts will have to haggle over with the Egyptian Ministry.”

Harry didn’t need to look over at Ron’s older brother to notice his concern. “I think you’re right.” He said, then turned to Cade. “Grab the jars and meet me back at the research tent. I’ll take them to their lodgings for the night and handle setting things up so they can head back to Cairo in the morning.”

“I’ll be waiting on you to open it.” The other Curse Breaker headed back over to the low shelf to gather up the stone jars.

“Alright.” Bill said, starting back towards the door of the tomb. “Let’s head back up. I’ll show you all to your tents.”

They’d been inside the pyramid a lot longer than Harry had expected. The red sun hung just past its highest point in the sky. The desert air was searing hot and smelled of baking sand but it was fresh, without any traces of the almost green-house like scent which had billowed from the opened coffin. Slowly, his stomach stopped churning but as he tramped back up the wooden ramps he couldn’t shake off the images of the tortured body removing the lid had unveiled.

Tyrant or not and regardless of what Ta-hem might have done no one deserved to go through something like that.

“Mate!” Harry started and looked up. Ron stared at him from across the tent. The little raven was sitting on a cot and couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. “You’re sure that you’re alright?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Just a little bit…disturbed. I didn’t expect to see anything like that.”

“Yeah, that was a bit more than anyone was really prepared for, I think.” He said. “Dinners in a couple of hours. You’re going to eat aren’t you?”

Harry wasn’t certain if Ron’s ability to be hungry regardless of what happened was admirable or ridiculous. “No.” He said. “I think I’m just going to turn in for the day now. I’m tired and what just happened took away my appetite.”

“Fair enough.” He headed towards the fluttering flap of the tent. “I’ll let your parents know if they ask.”

Harry nodded and lay back on the bed, watching the play of light and shadows dance across the ceiling of the tent until he dropped into a troubled sleep.

Cade was standing in front of the small table he’d set the five canopic jars on when Bill entered the research tent, tapping an impatient pattern against the wood with his apple wand.

“Done with them?” he turned his head enough to watch him approach. 

“Yes.” He said, coming to stand beside him. “No need to sound so annoyed, Blair. We wouldn’t have even gotten in there without Harry.”

“Yes, without Harry. There wasn’t need to turn it into a circus. It’s lucky thing they’ll be out tomorrow: we’ll actually have the space to get more work done.” Cade said. “The museum is hoping to negotiate for the body too; it’ll be hard going given the Goblins already gave up the scepter. That ruby was worth a bloody lot.”

“The Scepter of Apophis, symbol of Ta-hem’s power.” It had been one of the first things they’d found in the tomb, broken into two pieces-staff and ruby-and hidden in different chambers no doubt in hopes of preventing it from ever being put back together. An astoundingly dark object, it was now being studied at the museum in Cairo. “If they’re willing to give the Goblins the coffin they’d get the body without a fight but I doubt they’d be willing to do that.”

“As do I. We can’t identify the composition of that metal but it’s clearly magical. I doubt the Egyptian Ministry would want to risk the potential of their ancient secrets falling into the hands of another nation, especially one even peripherally associated with the Romans.” Cade said. “Let’s get down to things, shall we?”

Bill nodded. “What do we have? This is all of them?”

“Yes. All five.” Cade tapped each gently with the tip of his wand. “Hapi: lungs; Duamutef: stomach; Imsety: liver; Qebhsenuf: intestines; and this one. Notice anything?”

“It’s Set.” He said. “Just like the statues surrounding the reservoir: the brother of Osiris and nemesis of Apophis.”

“The perfect guard to contain Apophis’ son.” Cade pulled the baboon headed jar closer and said “they’re made of stone with painted wooden heads: fairly typical of the time period though their placement is more in line with later tombs. The question remains if the contents are also typical of the period or not.”

“They’d be empty, then.” Bill said. “We might never find out what was meant to be in the Set jar, depending on whether the hieroglyphs have any clues.”

“They felt too bloody heavy to be empty, even taking into account the fact they’re made of rock.” The other Curse Breaker pulled off the head of the jar containing the lungs and peered inside. “Not empty. Those are definitely shriveled human lungs.”

The liver, stomach and intestines were where they should have been as well. After replacing the lids on the first four jars, the pair turned their attention to the fifth and final jar. The lid came off with a pop and they peered inside.

“More mercury.” Bill said.

Cade grunted and transfigured a box and sieve out of a pair of stones. “Nothing to do but empty it out.” He tipped it over into the newly made container.

The metal spilled out in a flashing silver waterfall. The thing contained inside toppled onto the sieve with a heavy, wet slap. Fist sized and oddly shaped it was impossible to identify while still soaked in mercury. Bill pointed his wand at it.

“Aguamenti!” The stream of water washed away the clinging metal, revealing the bloodless flesh and blue veins beneath. “But…they don’t remove the hearts of the dead. It’s a violation of all of their beliefs about the afterlife.”

“Yeah, well, they probably didn’t want him moving on; wanted to make absolutely certain he’d be trapped as a wandering soul. After what he did-.” Cade dropped the jar he was still holding and it hit the sand with a dull thump. Bill looked down and nearly jumped out of his skin when the ancient, severed organ gave another stuttering throb.

They both watched in stunned silence as the heart continued to beat. And then, at once, the horrifying realization that Rayner and Windsor were still in the tomb dawned on them.

Bill wasn’t certain who moved first but they were both bolting out of the tent a moment later, pounding down the rickety wooden ramp and into the open pyramid with their wands clutched in their fists. He didn’t know what to expect-a mummy on a rampage; a shambling horror dragging itself across the floor; blood and guts everywhere-but when they reached the burial chamber it looked exactly as they’d remembered it. Rayner and Windsor were examining a skeleton at the far end of the room and looked up when they heard their hurried footsteps.

“Something wrong?” Windsor asked.

Cade opened his mouth but before he could answer there was a loud bang from the direction of the open coffin. All four men looked over in time to watch long, sharp fingers curl around the stone rim. Stiff joints crackled with every motion as the thing caught a grip and then pulled itself upright. The mummy’s jaw hung slightly unhinged as it sat there, motionless but for the habitual mimicry of breathing. The expansion of its chest stretched leathered skin further across sharp, white ribs. Empty sockets stared sightlessly forward.

“He’s blind.” Bill hissed, barely daring to speak. “Come over here but be quiet. We’ll seal the tomb until we find a way to get him back into the mercury.” 

Rayner eyed the twitching mummy for a few moments before nudging Windsor forward. As quickly and quietly as he could the Curse Breaker bolted across the length of the tomb. The monster didn’t react. Rayner moved to follow but only made it halfway before an ancient bone shattered beneath one of his feet, the sound echoing like thunder off the walls, and the Pharaoh’s head snapped around. The mummy was on him before any of the others could react, knocking the Curse Breaker to the ground and attacking his face with teeth and nails. Heedless of the spells and hexes flung in an effort to beat him back. The attack only ceased when Rayner stopped moving. The Pharaoh raised his head to glare at them with stolen eyes, red bleeding in around slitting pupils and face caked in blood, and hissed.

Bill seized Windsor and Cade by the backs of their shirts as the mummy coiled down for another pounce, pushing them up the slanted passage. “ _ Go!” _

Harry awoke to the sounds of chaos. Confused and still groggy, the little raven rolled off the cot that he’d been lying on and ambled over to the flap of the tent. Blinking quickly to clear the last remnants of sleep from his green eyes he stuck his head through to peer outside. Darkness had fallen and torches guttered atop poles set throughout the small village of tents. People he didn’t recognize-other members of the excavation team who weren’t Curse Breakers and whom Harry hadn’t met yet-thundered passed like a stampede of frightened deer. Shouting and yelling in an echolalia of confusion. Terror on their faces which raised the hairs along his arms.

Darting briefly back inside to grab his wand Harry left the tent and stuck out into the surging mass of people. Looking for his friends and family. Hoping he’d be able to spot at least one of them through the crowd. Calling for them but not able to hear any response over the footsteps and mishmash of voices. His small form was being battered about by the fleeing herd. He couldn’t see over the heads of the crowd but caught brief glimpses of something hunched and swift moving through the spaces between the tents. 

A foot came down on his ankle and he shouted in pain, attempting to pull himself free and tripping. Landing hard in the sand. Not wanting to be trampled to death he made an effort to get back to his feet but wasn’t swift enough. A knee collided with his temple and a bright light flashed behind his eyes. The thunder of the herd’s flight fading into silence.

_ The moon and stars were almost blinding against the indigo sky and everything around him was quiet. Confused and in pain, shivering slightly beneath the weight of cold air resting on his skin, the little raven pushed himself upright. Squeezing his eyes shut to prevent the world from spinning as he did so. Rubbing at his bruised temple with one hand. _

_ Where was he? How had he ended up there? Where had everyone else gone? The tents? The tomb? Surely a giant bloody pyramid couldn’t sprout legs and walk off as it pleased. There had to be something nearby that was familiar enough to ring a bell. _

_ When he raised his head to look around he noticed the dark figure standing mere yards away and jumped. Squinting through the blackness as the shape moved closer. Stepping from the shadows of a towering dune into the moonlight. _

_ Ta-hem’s red eyes remained locked on his face as he approached, dark irises awash with a swirling mix of sorrow, disbelief, desire and relief. “: _ **_You live_ ** _.:” Harry remained sitting where he was in the sand, confused, as the Pharaoh sank to his knees in front of him. Taking his face in his hands. Ta-hem’s palms were warm and calloused. Shaking fingers trailed gentle touches along the curve of Harry’s cheeks. “ _ **_:The ritual…you’re broken because of those traitors! But I’ll repair what they did. I swear as much, Har-ri_ ** _.:” Fingers trailed down further. Mapping his jaw. Tracing his lips. “: _ **_After four thousand years of suffering for what they dared to do, let their kingdom lie in dust. Ours will rise anew and persist until eternity_ ** _.” His hands slipped around to the back of Harry’s neck, gently beginning to guide him forwards. “ _ **_:Soon.:_ ** _ ” _

_ Their mouths slotted together in a familiar fit a moment before everything dropped once more into darkness. _


	5. Chasing Shadows

_The edge of evening dulled the desert heat around them, perfumed with sun warmed dates and baked earth and the assorted nectars of poppy and anemone. The sky was streaked with bands of red and orange which danced between the floating blue and white lotuses on the surface of the large pond in the center of the garden. The surface shivering with the lazy motions of the colored fish which swam beneath it and the breath of wind which stirred the papyrus reeds growing along the sides. His Pharaoh-Ta-hem; it felt strange to have a name to put to him now, after so long. Almost as strange as the realization that he wasn’t merely an image brought forth by his mind but had been a man, once, long long ago-kept leisurely pace with him as he wove between the tressels of jasmine and wisteria and the reaching branches of flowering tamarisk trees. His long strides silent at his side over the stone cobbles set into the ground._

_He didn’t speak. Just watched and followed until the little raven seated himself on a low wall. Curling his toes among the grapevines which clung to its face. Slowly, gaze unwavering on his consort’s face, the Pharaoh moved to sit beside him. Never missing a motion as Harry turned towards him and rested a hand against his chest. A raised, pinkish scar pressed into his palm. The skin beneath his fingertips was smooth and warm and full of life. “Ir hotep.” His lips formed words that had no meaning but anxiety filled him up from his toes as his hands began to shake. He broke off the gaze of those devouring red eyes. “Anuk pau hem ek. I udj kui kher’ek. Anuk mer ab en merer’e tu.”_

_The ancient man reached out to him with one large, pale hand. Taking his chin in a firm but gentle grip and turning his gaze back to meet his own. There was none of the irritation that he’d expected to find there. None of the anger over the confession that he’d made, though what the contents of it were Harry couldn’t begin to guess. All he knew was that he felt more for the man than his station should allow, and that he expected to receive punishment for the transgression. “Em sendj.” He spoke softly. His dark voice all but inaudible even in the peaceful silence which had fallen over the royal garden. “Atj tu merut ef. Ounn pet ounn, tje kher’e.”_

_The pharaoh’s dark curls reflected the remnants of the dying sun as he bent his head. Thin lips finding the dip of his shoulder with the same worshipful press as might imbue the kiss a pious man would place upon a shrine or an altar. The susinum perfume the long dead King wore across his skin overwhelmed his senses in a cloud of calla lily and cinnamon and myrrh. That reptilian sharpness clinging to the edges, as unforgettable as it was inhuman. Canines as sharp as a cobra’s fangs lightly brushed along the sensitive skin of his throat as he spoke more words in a tongue which hadn’t been heard for centuries. Words Harry couldn’t understand, yet echoed to the core of him with the message “stay with me.”_

_But he couldn’t stay there, in that dream of the far too distant past. The colors around him were already dulling. Blurring together until the clean cut shapes of the trees and the pond and even the Pharaoh himself melted away into an indiscernible mass. The sounds of birds and wind and servants going about their normal business dropping away as he surfaced. Though it didn’t escape Harry’s notice that Tahem’s voice was the last to leave him._

The young wizard opened his eyes to the sight of the ceiling of the apartment where his family was staying in Eirafa Alley. Memories swimming in front of his eyes alongside his vision. What had happened? Last thing he could recall, there’d been a human stampede. Some sort of panic had been sparked within the dig and people had started running everywhere. He’d been knocked down. Knocked out. And someone had carried him to the outskirts, where he wouldn’t be trampled to death by the crowd. Harry couldn’t recall who they’d been. The only things he remembered about them were how cold their touch was and what they’d smelled like: serpents and sand and…

The door of his room swung open, hitting the opposite wall with a bang loud enough to make him jump, and allowed his mother in the room. His father just behind her. Their eyes wide with more concern than he’d seen since the catastrophic broom crash he’d been in during the second to last quidditch game of his fourth year. 

“Oh, thank Merlin! You’re awake.” 

“What happened?” Harry pushed himself up into a seated position and blinked blearily. “How did we get back here? How long have I been out?”

His parents exchanged a weighted glance before his father answered. “They found something in the tomb. It was in one of the jars that they found in the burial chamber. They disturbed it and…” James hesitated a moment, then said “and woke him up. The Pharaoh. Rayner is dead. So are a small handful of the staff at the dig.”

“There was a panic when he started attacking people.” Lily told him, crossing the room to seat herself on the edge of his bed. She reached out and ran a hand along his back like she’d done when he was young and had just awoken from a nightmare. “Everyone just started running. We couldn’t get back to you. And you were trampled in the rush; thankfully you weren’t injured.”

“Someone found you and took you to the edge of the camp, where you wouldn’t be stepped on.” His father said.

He’d had a vision, of some sort, while he’d been unconscious. Had seen Ta-hem. Spoken with him. Though what his Pharaoh had said Harry couldn’t, for the life of him, remember. “Someone..?” he repeated, rather dumbly in his own opinion. Though, in his defense, his head still wasn’t quite working right yet. “Who?”

Again with that moment of heistance. “We don’t know.” His father admitted. “No one we’ve spoken to would claim responsibility. Granted, that’s only a small portion of the camp, but…”

The cold touch. The too-thin frame. The scent of sand and ancient perfume. Had his savior been the attacker that everyone else had been running from? Harry blinked hard again, feeling remarkably like a concussed lizard might while attempting to sit on a tall rock. “What happened to him?”

“What happened to who, baby?” his mother asked.

“The Pharaoh.” He said. “Did they get him back into the tomb?” Though Harry wasn’t certain if he wanted the answer to that question to be ‘yes’. Sure, he’d been described as a ‘tyrant’ by Bill when he’d explained his reign. Sure he’d apparently killed multiple people, including one of the Curse Breakers who had met them at the tomb’s entrance earlier that day. But the image of his twisted body, locked in a coffin for thousands of years, had burned itself into his eyes. He’d been a man, once. He’d been a man that had held him in his arms. A man that had looked at him like he’d hung the moon and the stars and put the sun up in the sky. A man who’d lain with and beside him, if only in his scattered dreams.

Harry didn’t love the Pharaoh, though he’d felt that Har-ri had while he’d spent those stolen moments behind his eyes, but he did feel like he knew him as more than just a monster from the far distant past. And wishing him back into a torturous imprisonment felt wrong on an uncomfortably deep level.

“No.” His father said. “The Pharaoh ran off into the desert amid the chaos. Where he is now, I honestly couldn’t hope to tell you.”

“Has the Ministry been contacted?” Weren’t Aurors supposed to report activity which might be considered as illegal or dark to the proper authorities who would possess the necessary jurisdiction to deal with it while they were abroad? He vaguely recalled his father saying something like that when he and Sirius had come to present about the profession during his Fifth Year.

“No.” The hand that James ran through his wild black hair betrayed the nervousness he felt and was so clearly trying to hide. “Bill doesn’t think it would be a good idea. Mainly because ‘the Goblins wouldn’t like that’.”

“So you and Sirius are going to ‘deal with it yourselves’?”

“Well, we’re rather hoping that one of the Curse Breakers is able to figure out some way to negotiate with Mr. I Am An Ancient Tyrant King And My Rest Has Been Disturbed that will convince him to...you know...go back to sleep?”

Yeah, that didn’t sound a very good plan. “Right. That’s...sound.”

“Thank you, Harry, for the vote of confidence.” His father said, rather dryly. His mother just sighed. 

“You didn’t answer when I asked how long I’d been out.” 

“A few hours.” Lily told him. “We apparated back here once we found you. You have a mild concussion, but with another few hours of rest and a last dose of pain potion you should be right as rain by morning.” Provided with what was, perhaps, the perfect segue his mother produced a small vial of clear green liquid which was very familiar to Harry after a lifetime of quidditch related injuries. “Take this and get back to sleep. If anything changes, we’ll let you know in the morning. Alright?”

By now, Harry knew better than to argue with his mother about the matter and took the vial with a grumbled word of thanks, pulling the cork out with a pop which reverberated across the room. He bid both of his parents good night and slipped back beneath the thin sheets which dressed the bed, grimacing at the taste of horklump juice, sage and wiggenweld bark which lingered on his teeth. Though thoughts of Ta-hem and where he might be now, potentially lost and confused in a world which looked nothing like the one he’d known, followed him to the very precipice of sleep, no further dreams of the Pharaoh came to him.

James closed the door of his son’s room as quietly as he could, and then turned to face his wife with a sigh. “I know, Lil. I know. But if this is really what Bill thinks is the best course of action, then I trust his judgement.”

“Bill Weasley,” she said, voice low enough that they wouldn’t be overheard by anyone in the other room, “is not an Auror, James!”

“No. But he is a Curse Breaker. And I think that makes him a bloody lot more familiar with this sort of...insanity than I am. I’ve never even had to deal with modern necromancy, nevermind whatever the _bleeding hell_ this is.”

“You really think that trying to deal with this ourselves is a good idea?”

“Involving the Egyptian Ministry will only lead to a larger group of people being involved, Lils. And that will just make it more likely that more people will die trying to confront that thing.” He said. “Come on. The sooner we get back in there the sooner we can start to come up with some way to deal with our Royal Friend. The longer he’s left to run around the more at risk the Statue of Secrecy is; if the Muggles see him-.”

“I know, James. Believe me.” Lily said. But when he tried to pass her in the short hallway to the sitting room, she grabbed him by the arm. “We keep the children out of this. 17 or not.”

He nodded, expression abruptly becoming more serious than she could recall seeing it in a long time. “If you hadn’t suggested that, I would have.” He said. “None of them need to be anywhere near anything of this scale. The Ancient Egyptians’ everyday casters would make modern Dark Lords look like Hogwarts first years. And this ‘Son of Apophis’ sounds like he was among the worst of the worst, even for them.”

With the matter behind them, they left the shadows of the hallway and returned to the crowded sitting room. Unsurprisingly, Lucius Malfoy was the only adult not present; Sirius and Remus had crowded themselves into the loveseat to the right of the coffee table while Molly and Arthur occupied the slightly large couch. Bill having claimed the single arm chair, his head in his hands and his long red hair freed of the tail it had been held back in earlier that day. The ribbon which had bound it hanging forgotten from one fist. James and Lily sat down together on the last remaining couch.

“There had to be more on him in that tomb than just what you showed us on the wall.” James said. “Tell us everything you know, Bill. We don’t know what about his history could help us; what he could possibly want.”

“Ta-hem was the second his name and the son of his father by his first wife. He was replaced as heir when his father took a second wife and turned to Apophis for what he believed he was owed. He killed his family for the throne. He was vain and cruel and ruled over Lower Egypt with an iron fist and was feared and hated by his people. He was softened by Har-ri after he received him as a gift from a noble, to the point where his people came to view the Pharaoh’s consort as a son of Ra sent to protect them from the Serpent King’s rage. That, combined with what was written on the wall I showed you, is all we know. And it was hard to put that much together considering the fact that, before they sealed the tomb for good, one of the stone masons who’d carved it took a chisel to everything that they could reach. Probably in an effort to erase his name, and him by extension, as the Egyptians believed that to record and remember a name is to ensure an afterlife for the person who bore it.”

“I don’t see how any of that is going to be of help in our situation.” Remus’ efforts to stay calm did little to cover up the strain in his voice. “He was asleep, if not truly dead, when we saw him in the tomb. What changed to make him wake up? Maybe we can reverse what was done, or put back what was taken, and he’ll go back on his own?”

“You said that it was something to do with those jars that you found.” Molly said.

“Standard burial practice was to lay their royal dead to rest with their organs contained in canopic jars, each guarded by a specific God. Normally, there are four: lungs, stomach, liver and intestines. The heart is left in the body to be taken with them on their journey through the underworld, as weighing it on the scales was an important facet of their judgement. Ta-hem’s had been removed, placed in more mercury and sealed away.” Bill said, rubbing his brow in a universal show of exhaustion. “When we poured it out to see what was inside and washed the metal off, it started beating. That was when he woke up.”

“So,” Sirius piped up slowly, “what you’re saying is that if we go back to the dig camp, find the heart and put it back into the mercury filled pot where it belongs the bloodthirsty evil undead Pharaoh will keel over? And then we’ll just have a scavenger hunt for a properly dead mummy on our hands instead of...this.”

The Curse Breaker sat back with a sigh. “Yes. In theory.” 

“What better choice do we have but to try?” Arthur asked.

“They’re right.” James said. “But it should only be a small group of us, in case that monster is still there. Sirius and I are both Aurors. Bills the only one who knows how any of this works. But the rest of you? You should stay here.”

“Harry needs some of us here in case his condition takes an unexpected turn.” Remus said placatingly, though all of them knew that likelihood was all but none existent. “Not to mention the others. And in the event that Ta-hem somehow manages to come tearing into Eirafa, we’ll be able to help keep people safe.”

“He can’t have moved that quickly, can he?” 

“It’s not impossible.” Bill said, pushing himself out of his chair and reaching up to tie back his hair. “Apparition wasn’t a thing as we know it now back then. Not to our knowledge, at least. But the arts they had access to, what they called ‘Heka’, could do a lot of stuff modern magic just isn’t capable of. They did have a way of traversing long distances though precisely what it was we can only guess.” 

“So what you’re saying is he could be outside the door right now?” Sirius’ grey eyes darted to the mentioned door. “Thanks, Bill. I definitely needed to know that. Just like I needed to know that little tidbit Harry had for us about how Hippos like to _kill people._ ”

“Let’s get going.” James said, crossing the room to retrieve the traveling cloak that he’d brought along on the trip only as an afterthought. “The sooner we can throw that bastard back into his grave the safer everyone will be.”

“We shouldn’t apparate.” Bill said. “At least not directly there. We can’t be certain that he’s gone, and it’s better we use caution than to potentially jump head first into a dangerous situation.”

“Apparating to ‘anywhere in this general area’ is a good way to end up splinched, Weasley. Never mind the fact we’d be likely to get separated like that.” James pushed his glasses more firmly up his nose and brushed his hair once more back from his face. “The next closest specific landmark is the tomb that he came out of. You think that’s safer?”

“Actually,” the young Curse Breaker said, “yes. I do. If we apparate into the tomb, we won’t be as easily ambushed. We’ll have walls to our back and sides. And coming up from the pit into the camp will give us a chance to look for anything or anyone that might be lying in wait among the tents from a level that it wouldn’t be easy to spot us from.”

Sirius glanced at his partner and shrugged. “He’s got a good point with that one, Prongs.” He said. “I vote for apparating directly into the creepy, hopefully vacant tomb.”

“Alright. Since it seems I’m out numbered in this.” Reluctance was clear in his voice as he raised his wand. “We’ll go on the count of three to the burial chamber. One. Two. Three!” He spun sharply on the spot. Catching sight of the other two doing the same out of the corners of his vision. The room around him blurred out of sight, replaced a moment later by pitch darkness. Two distinct sharp pops rang out from his left and right, interrupting the repetitive _drip! drip! drip!_ of the ever welling mercury. Sirius and Bill both lit their wands at the same time that he did, shedding white light across the pedestals the ibis-headed statues crouched on and revealing the chamber to be otherwise without occupation.

“Seems the coast is clear.” Bill said, already moving forward towards the opening which would lead out of the recently excavated territory and into the dig pit proper. “Extinguish your wands as soon as we get near the door. If something is out there, it’ll notice us a long time before we notice it if we have them on. There’s enough moonlight to see by anyway, this far out in the desert.”

Their footsteps echoed off the ancient walls as they made their way up the passage. Extinguishing their wands a few paces shy of the door and then stepping out into the icy darkness of the desert night. Pausing only long enough to give their eyes a chance to adjust as much as they could to the moonlight before proceeding up the rickety walkway which had been affixed to the sides of the pit. Crouching once they reached the top, only their eyes and the tops of their heads sticking up over the lip.

“Do you see anything?” Sirius hissed to him, squinting in a doomed effort to get a better look into the shadows which infested the open spaces between the white tents. Now left abandoned and fluttering in the wind. 

“No.” James said. “Do you, Bill?”

“Nothing.” The young Curse Breaker replied. “I think this is as safe as it will get. We shouldn’t linger here in case he comes back.”

Wands raised and heads on a swivel for all that they could barely see through the gloom, the trio crested the remainder of the walkway and stepped up onto the sand. 

“Where is this research tent?” James asked as they began to edge forwards. The hiss of sand around their feet raising the hairs along the back of his neck; the unfamiliar ambience of the desert did nothing to set his nerves at ease. 

“The middle of the encampment.” Bill said. “The shortest route to reach it is right this way. Only problem is, it leads through the darkest part of the camp.”

“And our other option?”

“Taking the long way.”

The longer they stayed out there, exposed and nearly blind, the more danger they were in. And with a murderous ancient mummy potentially stalking them off among the dunes, every precious second counted. “Darkest part of camp it is.”

The sound Sirius made was remarkably similar to his animagus form, but he didn’t complain. James wasn’t feeling particularly brave himself at the moment, were he to be entirely honest. Gryffindors, after all, didn’t have a particularly pleasant history with snakes. They moved as quickly as they could without risk of losing their footing or drawing attention to themselves, and were nearing the proper tent when something caught his foot. Cursing on reflex as he sprawled forwards into the sand, only narrowly managing to retain a grip on his wand, James kicked at the thing which had managed to catch hold of him. Freeing himself a moment later as Sirius and Bill both reached down to drag him back onto his feet.

“You alright there, Prongs?” his partner asked him, grip firm on his arm. “Looks like you found one of the poor bastards that weren’t quite fast enough to get away.”

For the first time since they’d gotten there James was grateful for the heavy shroud of darkness which lay across the land. It kept him from having to clearly see the damage that had been done to the corpse, though the glint of cold moonlight off of teeth-scoured bone didn’t escape his notice. “I’m fine.” He was shaking like a frightened deer. In another circumstance he might have been able to look back and find it funny, but there was no humor to be found in this. “For a second I’d thought something had grabbed me. Are we almost at the bloody tent?”

“Yes. It’s just up ahead of us now.” Bill said, letting go of him and stepping back. “Come on.”

A few hundred feet ahead of them and visible in the dark, their destination was slightly larger than any of the surrounding tents and possessed a rounded roof. Bill pushed the flap aside and ducked inside. James and Sirius only a step behind. Looking from the empty stone jar, left discarded in the sand, to the upturned box and the puddle of silver which had been spilled across the table, and then to Bill. The posture of the oldest Weasley boy was not the one of relief that they’d hoped for, but rather the coiled tension of horrified realization and defeat. 

“It’s gone,” Sirius said, “isn’t it?”

“He must have retrieved it before he left.” Bill sounded as shaken as they both felt and turned back towards them. Eyes wide in the gloom. “We’re not going to be able to get rid of him like this.”

“Then we’re going to need another plan.” James said, doing his best to keep his voice stern and level. “There has to be more to this than just a pointless rampage. Than being hungry or angry. He’s _clearly_ thinking to have covered his bases by retrieving his heart. Might have ever expected us to come back here and try and put it back in the jar. He has to wand something, right? One of the artifacts that you found in the tomb? _All_ of them, maybe.”

“There’s only one object we found that would be worth rising from the grave for; the Scepter of Apophis. The symbol of Ta-hem’s power. The Ancient Egyptians used scepters and amulets like we use wands today; they believed that the facets in gemstones could amplify magical energy.” Bill said. “We found it in two parts, set in different chambers of the tomb, and sent it to the museum-.”

“Then we’ll have to go and get it back from the museum, won’t we?” 

“It’s worth a try.” Sirius was quick to agree. “We get the scepter from the museum, and then we find Mr. Angry Pharaoh and give it back and he goes back to bed in the sand for another few thousand years so he can be _someone else’s problem!_ ”

“We are _not_ willingly giving him the scepter.”

“Because the Goblins won’t like it?” James could feel his temper fraying. Red sparks shooting from the tip of his wand as he started to pace about in the confined space beneath the canopy of the tent. “I’m going to be honest with you, Bill, at the moment I couldn’t give a flaming toss about what Gringotts has to say.”

“This has nothing to do with my employer. _Think_ , James. The Scepter of Apophis is an artifact of dark power at least on the level of the Elder Wand, and you want to hand it back to the _psychotic tyrant_ who just rose from the grave his own priests threw him into, kicking and screaming, after he massacred not only an entire rival kingdom to the last man but the army he used to do it? He wanted to rule the world when he lived, not just Egypt. And it’s only a matter of time before he tries to take over this one.” Bill snapped, a bite to his words that neither of them had ever heard before. “What we need to do is lure him back here and throw him into the mercury. And then find some way to make this tomb impossible to find so no one else lets him out again.”

“Then let’s use the scepter as bait.” Sirius said. “It’s something we know he’d want.”

“We’re not going to use the scepter for anything. We’re leaving it at the museum, where he won’t find it.” 

“And what do you suggest?” James asked. “Using modern magic on him?”

“Immortal or not, and regardless of whether his people thought of him as a demon back then, he’s human. Hit him with enough stunners, he’ll stop moving. And once he does, we bring him back here.”

“Alright then,” James said, reluctant. Folding his arms across his chest and lightly tapping his wand against his shoulder. “How do you suggest we hunt him down?”

“By not starting with him.” Bill said. “We need to find Cade and Windsor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:   
> Har-ri: Forgive me. I know it is above my place as your servant but I've fallen in love with you.  
> Ta-hem: Don't be frightened. I've come to feel for you as well. As long as the sky still exists, so shall you be a part of my soul.


	6. As Long As the Sky Still Exists

The world had changed, while he’d been trapped inside that prison. The Gods and the old ways had been forgotten. The Heka lay weak. The sorcerers who practiced it hid in holes like rats. The ungifted ruled from obelisks of metal and glass which reached into the vault of the sky and rode about in metal chariots that moved without horses and dressed in strange clothes. It was a perversion, an affront, and it would be rectified soon enough. By his hand. Just as soon as he reclaimed his rightful place as king. But there were things he had to do first. Greater priorities and more pressing concerns. So Ta-hem made his way through the strange streets of the twisted city, without any signs of the palaces and noble homes and temples he remembered, following the threads of magic drawing him towards two of the three scavengers who had released him. 

There was one more after them, but the ancient Pharaoh was in the business of seeking easy prey. At least for the time being. And a couple of cornered mice was far more attractive to a weakened asp than a den full of mongoose. So he’d allow the third to evade him, so long as he stayed out of his path.

He was, after all, a merciful King. And it was good practice to reward one’s subjects when they did good. Even their unfavorable ones, as Har-ri had never seemed to cease reminding him.

The thought of his consort sent a stab of pain lancing through his being, provoking skeletal fingers to splay across his sunken chest. Hollow, but for his recovered heart; beating in the empty expanse left by his efforts to clear all of the flowers and linens that the traitors had stuffed inside him, now a scattered trail across the desert as he’d passed like sand blown on the wind. It had been so long since he’d seen his consort. So much effort had been wasted in the foiled effort to bring him back. He’d never imagined he’d see him again were he ever to be freed, but he had. Though it didn’t come as a cause for celebration.

He’d been fractured when the rift between Duat and the living world the ritual had formed had slammed shut. It was the only explanation for his Starlight not remembering him.

He’d fix it. He’d soothe his suffering, make things right again. But he’d need to restore himself first. He’d taken back his heart. He’d stolen eyes. He’d stolen some skin, some muscle, but he needed more of it. He needed his other organs. Needed a tongue and lungs to speak with. Projecting himself into his consort's mind, even while he’d been unconscious in the sand, had taken too much out of him to be a viable long term means of communication. He’d worried his arms might snap off while he’d carried him to the outskirts of the encampment of strange tents the interlopers had erected out there in the desert; what an embarrassment it would have been to drop his love after all the times he’d held and carried and protected him.

He couldn’t let his Starlight see him like this. Not this withered and ruined. But if he took all he could from the two rats he was tracking, he’d be presentable. Not fully restored, not even near it, but enough that he could satisfy his need to see him again.

Finally, after 4600 years, he could touch him again. Could press his lips against his throat the way he’d always seemed to like and feel the pulse that beat there. Could watch him breathe and be secure in the knowledge that he was  _ alive _ .

Even if he wouldn’t be quite right until the ritual he’d started was finished.

The trail that he’d been following ended at the wooden doorway of a run down and rather nondescript building. The stars were still overhead, but the horizon line behind the city’s jagged back had stained itself with pink and gold. The same colors which had scattered the streets of  _ his _ city on the sacred days. The hour where Set forced the serpent to regurgitate the sun drew near, and in these final moments of darkness he would make his move. 

The efforts which had been put into securing the door against entry meant nothing to him and it swung open with only a faint touch. The floorboards creaked beneath his weight as he crossed them to the stairs. Climbing to the second floor. Another door greeted him, putting up even less resistance than the first had as his fingers curled around the metal knob. Turning it and pushing. The room inside was small but Ta-hem didn’t care for details beyond the sleeping form on the bed. Striking the moment he was at close enough a distance and digging his fingers into flesh until it tore. Cracking apart the bones beneath it and swiftly silencing his prey by tearing free the lungs at their moorings. Reaching into his own chest to hang them in their proper place. Savoring the sensations which came with the first real breath he’d taken since he’d been entombed.

But his moment of quietly marveling at the forgotten processes which came with having a proper working body was cut short by the sounds of flight from out in the hall. It seemed the second rat was trying to get away.

Hissing and clicking his teeth together, Ta-hem drew on his Heka, still reactive and strong even after so long without use, and felt himself crumble. Dropping through the spaces between the floor boards as little more than grains of sand and reforming between the man and the door. Lunging before he could make an effort to dodge out of the way and taking him to the ground with a heavy thud. Pinning his head in place and pressing his mouth over his. Tearing away only once he’d successfully sucked out his tongue. Silencing the garbled whimpers that his cries had become by sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of his throat.

Blood welled in his mouth. Hot and thick and sweeter than the plum and pomegranate wines he’d taken with his meals; than the dates and peaches and grapes grown within the royal gardens, taken fresh from the tree. To taste again was like first finding his Heka as a child; like triumph; like vengeance. And he drank of it until there was no more, for what little good blood alone would do him. Teeth cutting meat and scraping bone only once there was no more.

He would eat from his kills until they no longer had anything of worth and then he would find somewhere hidden among the strange city to wait until Apophis swallowed the sun once more.

And once the eye of Ra no longer lay upon the land, he would go to see Har-ri.

“I still can't believe this!” Ron sounded utterly affronted, kicking his feet beneath the bench he’d sat on and ignoring the look of mild annoyance Draco was shooting at him for doing so. “I could understand if they were just saying no to Ginny-.”

“Oh, how very encouraging of you Ronald!” The youngest Weasley snapped from her seat against the trunk of a doum palm, narrowing her eyes at her brother.

“You’re 16, Gin. You’re not an adult, yet. But we are! We should at least be allowed to know what the bloody hell is going on!”

“It’s probably hard to think of us as adults when we haven’t got careers and have just graduated school.” Draco grumbled. “I could probably have gotten my father to tell me but he doesn’t seem interested in what’s going on.”

“They’re not letting us in,” Fred countered, “and we have careers!” For all that Mrs. Weasley didn’t entirely agree that running a joke shop could really be considered a legitimate business.

“They’re not even letting perfect prefect Percy in through the door.” George said. “So it’s not that. Something has them right scared and they don’t want us involved.”

“It’s the Pharaoh.”’ Harry said dully from his position on the lip of a decorative pond, one hand left to trail in the water to better ward off the steadily mounting heat. It had been the first thing he’d said in nearly an hour, having not been left in much of a mood for talking when his parents had decided to treat him as if he were still a kid and declined to provide him with any further information. If he were to be entirely honest, the main source of his annoyance would have had to be the fact that this was  _ his Pharaoh _ they were keeping from him. And where he didn’t particularly want to find himself alone with the mummy given everything he’d done he felt like he was being robbed of the answers to why he’d been dreaming what he had. Answers that were more concrete than theories and an ancient wall mural “That’s what they don’t want us getting involved with. That’s what happened at the dig. They woke him up and now he’s running around somewhere, potentially attacking people.”

“What, mate?” Ron demanded, looking at him like he expected his best friend to suddenly tell him he was joking.

“They don’t want us involved with the rampaging undead Pharaoh. Was that clear enough for you?”

“No need to get so snappish, Potter.” Malloy drawled. “Just because you’re being cock blocked by your parents doesn’t mean you have to take it out on us.”

“Cockblocked?” George repeated, both twins perking up.

“Why, Harrykins.”

“Is there.”

“Something.”

“You’re not.”

“Telling us?”

Taking the necessary few seconds to flash the rudest gesture he could think of at Draco, much to Ginny’s amusement, Harry snapped “you can’t really expect us to believe that one of you don’t have  _ something  _ we can use to find out what they’re talking about in there.”

“Well, we never said that.” Fred said.

“We brought an experimental product with us, just to fiddle around with.” George produced what looked like a flesh colored string from his pocket and held it up for examination. “We call it an extendable ear.”

“Problem is we only have one of them at the moment.”

“Duplication charms make them stop working, we’ve found. Crying shame.”

“Which means we’ll have to vote on the lucky winner to sneak over to that window and report back.”

“I vote Potter. Knowing what’s happening with tall leathery and skeletal might pull him out of the mood he’s been put in over not getting to be dicked down by the Serpent king in real life.” Draco said. “How exactly does that work, anyway?”

“You’re also in a relationship with a man and you need an explanation on what goes where?” Ginny snorted. “I think common sense will work that out for you.”

“”Well, unlike a snake your brother doesn’t have a hemipenis.”

“My Pharaoh is perfectly human down there, thank you very much! Though I question why you know so bloody much about snake biology, Draco.” Harry leapt to his feet and thrust his hand out towards the twins. Red to the tips of his ears. “Give me the damned ear!”

He was practically chased across the court by their laughter.

Dropping down into a crouch as he approached the window, Harry shuffled closer as quietly as he could. Sticking one end into his ear and feeding the other through the open window. The voices of the adults coming through a moment later. Unfortunately Harry didn’t get to listen to the conversation for more than a handful of seconds before the string was grabbed from the other end and pulled out of his grip.

Harry thought he knew who the culprit of that was. Hissing under his breath, the little raven raised himself up until he could look over the top of the sill. Green eyes first looking over to where the adults sat in a loose circle around the coffee table and then swiveling downward. Catching sight of exactly what he’d expected to see.

“Pepper!” He said, as quietly as he could while still sounding stern. “Pepper, no!” But his mother’s cat ignored him outright and continued to amuse herself with the string. Pulling it out of his reach when he tried to grab the other end. Internally cursing and hoping he could manage to retrieve the ear and leave before he was spotted Harry hoisted himself in through the window only to have his grip slip on the sill and send him tumbling to the floor with a thump.

“Harry.” Came the voice of his very exasperated father as he picked himself up off the tiles. All seven of them were staring at him and his cover was officially blown. Small consolation he was able to at last wrest the string free of Pepper’s claws. “I thought your mother and I told you that we didn’t want you involved. Any of you.”

“We’re adults, dad!”

“That doesn’t matter. Not for this.”

“It  _ does  _ matter because you’re treating us like children.” Harry huffed, clambering up onto his feet and shooting a glare at the furry menace. Pepper just blinked innocently and returned to staring at the string in his hand. “I’m not asking you to let me help, but it’d be bloody nice if you would at least tell us what’s happening.”

“Darling, I know you feel like we’re keeping you in the dark but it really is to keep you safe.” His mother said. “You all should just focus on enjoying your time here. A trip like this isn’t something that comes around often.”

Because enjoying vacation while the past wouldn’t leave you the bloody fuck alone and no one in the present would tell you anything about the matter was a roaring good time. “Right. Thanks.” Stuffing the ear into his pocket before the cat could make another effort to steal it, he turned for the door in a huff. “Also, about looking for the other Curse Breakers, try an owl!”

James sighed as the door slammed behind his son, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair yet again; how often he’d done it since all of this madness had started he didn’t know, having long ago lost count. “He actually has a point with the owl.” He said. “They have to have a post office somewhere in Eirafa. We can borrow an owl and follow it to them; they have to be somewhere in Cairo.”

“I think he might have another point as well, James.” Remus said, sounding as tired as no doubt all of them looked. “Maybe we should at least let them help us come up with plans. It will make them feel involved without there being any real danger. They might go looking for Ta-hem on their own if we don’t handle this carefully.”

“There’s always going to be at least one of us here to keep an eye on them.” Lily said. “If they were all Gryffindors maybe that would work, but they aren’t. Draco is a Slytherin and Harry has a streak. If we give them an inch they won’t let it go.”

“That’s needlessly disparaging of our son, Lils.”

“It is  _ not _ inherently bad to be a Slytherin!”

“Oh. Right.” James grimaced. “How could I forget you’re friends with Snivellus.” James yelped when Lily pinched him. “Ouch!”

“Right, well, let’s head out to find that post office shall we?” Sirius said with a great deal more cheer than was warranted or necessary. “Preferably before Lils kills him.”

“The post office is on the far end of the alley.” Bill said, rising from his seat on the couch beside Remus. “I’ll take you there and we’ll see about borrowing an owl. It’s about,” a swish of his wand summoned a watch for him to check the time, “two hours out from noon. Hopefully we’ll be able to find Cade and Windsor by nightfall, and get back here with them before too long after that.”

“No time to waste.” The dog animagus led the way towards the door that Harry had just forcibly closed. “To the post we go.”

The sun beat down from almost directly overhead; a dusty white eye against the pale blue of the desert sky. The youngest members of their group had gathered together near the fountain, beneath the shade provided by the trees and flowering bushes, talking quietly among themselves. The little raven made a point of ignoring them, and kept his back faced in their direction as they passed.

Eirafa Alley, only a few steps beyond the tan stone walls of the resort’s private courtyard, looked just as it had when they’d arrived in the country only two days before. Flooded with locals and tourists alike; merchants selling their wares and customers in search of items that they needed and sightseers milling about like stray dogs in the heat. None of them burdened by the knowledge that they carried with them like a curse; that a monster had been unleashed once more upon a world perhaps no longer equipped to defeat him and could, even now, be waiting to spring from one of the shadows onto any one of them with skeletal fingers and gnashing teeth.

The owl post was, as Bill had told them, located on the far end of the Alley from where they were staying and looked little different, all things considered, than its British equivalent hundreds of miles away. Marked by a hanging sign in the shape of one of the birds. The inside of the building was small and hot and slightly putrid smelling, and the walls were lined with perches. Each appropriately colored so as to divide the short distance fliers from the long distance ones, as well as to mark out each respective owl’s speed of delivery. The cost for procuring the services of one of the fastest short range raptors was just over a galleon.

Not even bothering to pen a letter, they simply folded a piece of parchment and attached it to its leg before setting the owl free. Pursuing it with no small amount of difficulty out across Muggle Cairo to the rundown shell of what looked to be either an abandoned building or an incredibly cheap hostel.

The front door had been left hanging slightly ajar. All three men drew their wands in tandem and closed in, each step laced with hesitant caution and dread curling in their chests. James was the first to reach the door. Noticing, first, the scent of blood and the early onset of decay, and then the faintest trace of what might have been cinnamon or something floral, before he pushed the door wide. The windows were grimy and almost opaque, but enough sunlight made it inside to properly illuminate the interior; the cheap wooden furniture scattered about at seemingly random angles; the dark stains against the dusty floor; the body lying there in the middle of the room.

There was no darkness to shield them from the full horror of the sight, now, like there had been while they were out in the abandoned dig camp in the middle of the desert. James felt bile rise in the back of his throat but forced down the urge to wretch. Behind him, Sirius swore. The door frame rattled as Bill’s weight fell against it, a hand rising up to cover his mouth, eyes wide with disbelief and horror. “Cade!”

The Curse Breaker looked as if he’d been mauled by something ferocious and possessing human teeth. Or, at least, teeth that were human-like. Skin and muscle had been stripped clear from bone on his face and chest and hands. His neck gashed open and face frozen into a look of utter terror. James swept his gaze around the room once more, to reassure himself that nothing was still lurking there, and stepped forward. Crouching beside the body and carefully prying open his mouth.

“His tongue is gone.” He said. “It looks like it was ripped out instead of cut. And was taken away, or-.”

“Stolen.” Bill’s voice was tight, his expression twisted into a rictus of disgust. “He’s using their flesh to restore himself. He took Rayner’s eyes in the tomb.”

Sirius looked over at the oldest Weasley boy in bald alarm. “He’s eating people to make himself look like a man again instead of a human shaped piece of leather?”

“I told you that Ta-hem was vane. But I doubt this is a matter of appearance. He’d be weak, withered to little more than a skeleton. The smartest thing that he could do before anything else would be to restore himself to flesh and blood.” Forcing his eyes away from his fallen colleague, Bill stepped around the body on the floor and headed for the stairs. “We need to check upstairs. Windsor might have gotten away.”

Though, considering that the owl hadn’t attempted to head away anywhere else, James very much doubted that. Nevertheless, with a glance sent to his partner and his wand tightly held in hand, he followed the Curse Breaker up onto the second floor.

Two doors hung open, there; one just in front of them and one further down the hall. The nearest of the two presenting a grim answer to the question of whether or not Windsor had managed to escape.

“Oh, Merlin.” Sirius retracted back from the doorway almost immediately after entering, face going from white to grey to green in rapid succession. “He’s been eviscerated.”

James grit his teeth and set his jaw against the stench of blood and entrails which hung in the hot room like a fetid shade. Looking over the figure lying on the gore stained bed, so badly torn apart that it was difficult to recognize that they’d ever been human to begin with. Bill pushing passed before the Auror could think to stop him.

“Tongue and skin. Eyes. Internal organs.” The young Curse Breaker buried his shaking hands in his long hair. “I don’t know how many people he’d need to eat to fully restore himself, but at this point I’d say he’s halfway there. We’re running out of time if we’re going to take care of him while he’s at his weakest.”

“And before he switches his priorities to something else. Either taking over the modern world or going after the scepter, which you seem convinced is the very worst thing he could ever get his hands on.” James said. “But I think we might have a more immediate concern.”

“A more immediate concern than a monster who’s already capable of this getting their hands on a powerful ancient weapon?” Bill’s laugh was forced and shaky. “Let’s hear it, then?”

“I think it should be obvious. There are thousands of people in this city that he could have gone for if satisfying a hunger or an anger or regenerating himself was all he wanted. But instead he chose to track two specific people down who were related to him ever being freed in the first place. All three of the others have been killed. The only one left is you.”

“Are you suggesting that Ta-hem might come after Bill next?” Sirius asked.

James nodded grimly. “I do.”

“Regardless of whether or not that’s true, we can’t just sit around and wait in the hopes that he comes busting through a wall to try and eat me next.” He said. “Not in the least because I don’t particularly like the thought of playing bait. He can’t have gotten that far. We need to at least try and follow his trail, and find him.”

“Well, with all this blood around there has to be some sign of where he went.” James said, turning back towards the hall. “Let’s take a look around outside. Foot steps. Blood stains. There has to be something.”

  
  
  


He hadn’t carried resentment like embers locked inside his chest since he was 15 and brimming over with typical teenage angst. The sensation of it familiar in all the worst ways, souring his mood and leaving his temper pressed just beneath his skin. Ready to flare at a moment’s notice, if given the slightest provocation. As such Harry had forgone dinner, much to the concern of his mother and the other adults, and shut himself away in his room. Flopping down on the sunbed beside the open window and watching the red orb of the sun drop steadily lower until it disappeared beyond the horizon. His eyelids growing heavy and drooping closed not long afterwards.

His sleep was light and short, disturbed by a gentle scraping sound which, upon opening his eyes, he discovered was the drag of scales over wood. Were he not a Parselmouth he’d probably have been a great deal more concerned to wake up to the sight of the head of an eight foot long Egyptian Cobra poking up over his window sill. But, given that he was, the young wizard merely regarded the intruder with mild surprise.

**_“:...Hello?:”_ ** The serpent didn’t answer him. Continuing to stare for a long moment before a forked, black tongue flicked out. So close to his face that the tip almost touched his nose. Its eyes were approximately the size of the pad of his thumb, perfectly round and glowing a bloody shade of crimson. Regarding him with an intelligence which was uncomfortably human. And then it began to move. Long, black and golden body-as thick around as his forearm-slithering over the sill of the window, over the side of the day bed and down onto the floor before it turned to face him again. Rearing up as if to form into a striking curve, only for its body to continue to rise. Higher and higher as it began to shift and change. Smooth sides parting into arms and legs. Scales vanishing into skin and hair and its flat diamond shaped head giving way to the features of a human face.

Cold dread flooded his veins as Harry realized that the animagus who now stood before him was Ta-hem. His Pharaoh was just as tall and broad as he remembered, head crowned in hazel curls, but his beauty was marred considerably. Living skin pulled taut across his skull, up from his neck and shoulders-smooth and almost milky white-but hadn’t managed to stretch fully across his features. Leaving the left side withered and monstrous; red eye almost seeming to bulge from his naked socket and teeth left bared on full display on one half of his face.

“Starlight.” His voice was dry and roughened with centuries of disuse, but beneath the rust was as dark and smooth as he remembered. His terrible gaze adoring as it rested on him, where he sat frozen atop the daybed with the window to one side and the mad murderous King blocking his path to the door. “Forgive my appearance. I fear that the ages have not been kind. I should not have come to you like this, should have waited until I restored myself properly, but I couldn’t bear to wait another moment when I could see you. If only briefly.”

Harry stared at him openly. Mind at once churning far too quickly and coming up with nothing at all before the notion that he could understand what was being said to him succeeded in finally clicking it over. “Y-You’re speaking English?”

“The tongue I’ve stolen knows the words my mind does not.” He stepped forward, motions swift and fluid as a snake, and reached out. Hand sliding up to cup his cheek with an almost painful delicacy before Harry could think to flinch away. “It is not our language, but it will serve well enough for now as it allows you to understand me without need of the serpent’s speech. The tongue of our Empire is one of many things that your shattering has taken from you.” His thumb brushed lightly over the curve of his jaw. The motion one clearly meant to sooth. “But it will be returned soon, my love. As should your memories. Just as soon as I’ve restored you.”

“Restored me?” Dumbledore had said it wasn’t a past life because he didn’t have memories of a childhood. But had that been because he was, as the Headmaster had suggested, a ‘wrinkle in time’ or had that been because he’d been ‘shattered’ though what that might mean he didn’t know.

“Your soul was fractured into two shards when those mongrels interrupted the ritual to bring you back. Your ka returned to your body, but the rift was slammed shut before your ba could follow. It’s found another way. Been reborn in you. But you are not yourself. You don’t remember me. You don’t remember our Kingdom.” His hand slipped from Harry’s cheek to his chin and, as he’d done in the dream he’d had of the lavish royal garden, tilted his green gaze up to meet his focused red one. “I will fix it. As soon as I’ve restored myself and reclaimed my scepter, I’ll come back for you. I’ll take you to your tomb and slaughter this false body so that you can reclaim your real one.”

The opportunity for answers to all the burning questions he’d been left with by his constant recurring dreams about why he had them and who he’d been abruptly lost all luster for him in the face of what had just been said. Replaced entirely by a bone deep fear which made the Pharaoh’s gentle grip burn his skin like frostbite. “You’re going to kill me?”

“I’m going to free your soul for resurrection.” The ancient man either didn’t notice how horrified the little raven had become, or didn’t care. A vicious triumph twisting what lips he did have into a terrible smile. “I’m going to bring you  _ back _ to me, Starlight. I’m going to make you whole again. End your suffering.”

“I’m not suffering!” His raised voice sounded far too loud in the quiet of the night, surely carrying through the walls of the house. Terror driving shards of ice into his heart when the sound of rushing footsteps began coming closer down the hall. Ta-hem hissed bitterly and turned to face the door as his mother threw it open, wand raised and pointed dead at the intruder’s chest.

“What is this interruption?” Harry took advantage of the momentary distraction to dart around the man, his mother grabbing his arm and pulling him behind her. Ta-hem followed the motion with his sanguine eyes, displeasure clearly evident on his terrible face. “You defy me, Starlight? You defy your King? You are mine, you have always been mine, and you will always be mine Har-ri. As long as the sky still exists.”

“His name,” Lily snapped, returning the glare that he caught her in full force, “is  _ Harry _ !”

The grin which had previously been on his face formed into a sneer and he took a single, menacing step forward. Raising a hand in a plain demand for the little raven to come back to him. “Come to me.” When he didn’t immediately react, the Pharaoh snarled and barked louder “ _ come! _ I haven’t the patience for defiance, even from you. Come to me or she suffers more than need be for standing in the way of her rightful King!”

His mother’s fingers bit into his wrist with how tight her grip had become, keeping him firmly in place at her side. Not that Harry would have wanted to go to his Pharaoh knowing, now, that the man he’d seen show such devotion wanted to drag him back to some tomb out in the desert and murder him. A shower of sparks fell from the tip of Lily’s raised willow wand, a threatening golden color as they danced across the floor. Ta-hem hissed like an affronted basilisk and drew himself up taller, the glow of his eyes appearing to intensify. But before either one of them could react a black blur rounded the doorframe and lunged with a low yowl. The Pharaoh leaping back from it with a string of curses.

Pepper hissed more viciously than Harry had ever heard, tail on end and fur puffed up and chased the man across the room. The King fled before her as if she were a dragon instead of a brown and white tabby. All but flinging himself out the window and disappearing in the ever deepening darkness of the night. His mother’s cat stopped on the window frame, back arched, and let out one final spitting growl for good measure before turning to fix them in her familiar yellow stare.

“The guardians of the underworld.” Harry could hear the way his own voice trembled as Lily released him. Seeming to sag abruptly with relief. “Blood hell. He’s afraid of cats!” Maybe knowing Pepper was there would keep Ta-hem from coming back.

His attention was pulled from the feline's hunched form by a flash of soft, silver light. The glowing form of a doe raced away through the nearby wall as his mother’s hand found his shoulder instead and pulled him back into the hallway towards the sitting room. “I’ve sent a patronus to try and find your father, Bill and Sirius.” She said. “They can insist on dealing with him themselves, not contacting the Egyptian Ministry for assistance, but I’m drawing the line at him coming after you like this! You’re going back to London.”


	7. No Escape

Sirius and Bill arrived a split second behind him, but James was already well on his way towards the house in which his family was staying before the twin pops of their apparition could fully fade away into the surrounding night. Wand clutched so tightly in his fist that he was of half a mind to worry that the wood might snap beneath his fingers. Lily had been waiting for them just inside the front door and intercepted him before he could take more than a handful of steps into the building. Her face blanched white and urgency in her green eyes.

“What happened?” He demanded. “Where’s Harry? Did that bastard-!”

“He’s in the sitting room, James. With Pepper. He wasn’t hurt.” His wife reassured him, glancing over at the other two as they stepped in through the door as well. “I’m not sure how he got in, but when I heard Harry yell I found the Pharaoh in his room. He tried to attack me for ‘interrupting’, though what I was ‘interrupting’ I’m not sure. Harry wouldn’t tell me.”

“You chased him off?” Sirius sounded shocked.

“Pepper chased him off.”

“Of course he’d be afraid of cats. It makes perfect sense.”

Both James and Sirius turned to stare at the Curse Breaker as if he’d lost his mind. “You’re...going to have to explain that one to us, mate.” The dog animagus said.

“The Egyptians viewed cats as protectors of the afterlife. As a lost soul, Ta-hem would fear potentially having his spirit dragged back into the other world if he let the cat too near.” He said. “He might even have interpreted Pepper protecting the two of you as actively attempting to do so.”

“Do you think the cat being here will keep him from coming back?” James asked.

“That would depend on why he came in the first place.” Bill said. “Fear, no matter how strong, can only control someone for as long as they allow it to. And if someone wants something badly enough it quickly loses its power.”

“Any idea why he came here?” 

“They were talking, before I found them. Harry sounded afraid when he shouted, though I couldn’t make out what he said from across the house.” Lily said. “He kept referring to him as ‘Har-ri’.”

“So he thinks Harry is the consort that he loved to an unhealthy degree?” Sirius piped up. “That’s a good thing, right? It means that he, at least, isn’t going to end up with his face chewed off.”

“It’s not a good thing. No.” Bill said. “He won’t end up like Cade and Windsor but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. Ta-hem will keep coming back for him. Either to ‘rule the world together’ or to use him as a sacrifice to finish the ritual his priests interrupted to bring Har-ri back. As long as he stays in Egypt he’s in the Pharaoh’s reach. And as long as he’s in the Pharaoh's reach he’s in danger.”

“We need to send him back to Britain, James.” Lily said. “As soon as possible.”

“She’s right. I’ll contact Gringotts; the Goblins should be able to expedite an emergency connection back to London for him by tomorrow afternoon.” Bill said, pulling the door open again. “That way, we’ll at least know he isn’t being kidnapped by an ancient King while our backs are turned.”

“Thank you, Bill.” James offered the young Curse Breaker a nod. “Sirius, why don’t you head over to the house that the Weasleys are staying in for the night. At least until we can be certain that Ta-hem isn’t going to go after him next.”

“Sure thing, Prongs. I’ll get Remus to come keep watch with me.” His partner said, clasping his friend’s shoulder. “Go comfort Harry. I’m sure waking up to a mummy in your bedroom would scare the daylights out of anyone.”

The front door swung shut a moment later, leaving the pair alone in the quiet shadows of the entry hall. James turned to his wife again. “He’s alright?”

“Shaken up. But not physically hurt.” She reassured him. “What happened to the other two Curse Breakers?”

“Ta-hem got to them first, Lils.” He said. “He’s eating people. Taking body parts to repair himself. They were hiding out in cheap lodgings in Muggle Cairo and...Merlin, it was awful. Blood everywhere. One of them wasn’t even recognizable as a man anymore. If this monster wants anything to do with Harry, then I fully agree with getting him out of here. Though magic knows convincing him to leave might not be easy.”

“I think you’d be surprised, James.” Gently taking hold of his arm, Lily led him across the handful of steps which still separated them from the sitting room. Their seventeen year old son was curled up on the couch with his knees drawn up to his chest and Pepper’s brown and white form clutched tightly in his arms. His face buried in her fur as he shivered like a leaf caught in a winter wind. 

“Harry?” He flinched at the sound of his voice, and slowly raised his head. Green eyes half-focused and far away. James stepped carefully closer and lowered himself onto the cushion beside him. “Harry, are you alright?”

His son continued to stare at him in silence for a long time, then said “I’ve been having dreams about him since I turned seventeen. I wanted to know why it was happening. I wanted answers. But I don’t want to know anymore.” He dropped his face back into the tabby’s fur. His voice muffled into Pepper’s side. “I just want to go home.”

Whatever the monster had said to him, or done before he’d been chased off, had clearly shaken his son badly. The knowledge that his child had been terrorized, legally an adult now or not, made James hate the beast they’d mistakenly unleashed even more. “Bill is reaching out to the Goblins now.” Gently, he rested a hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeezed. Watching him wrap his arms a little bit tighter around the softly purring cat. “You’ll be back in London by tomorrow afternoon. He won’t be able to reach you there. And we’ll deal with him.”

Harry didn’t respond to him again, but eventually he stopped his constant shaking. Whether or not he’d fallen asleep, though, James wasn’t certain. Lily joined them in the sitting room, perching herself in the armchair which Bill had occupied earlier in the day with a cup of tea in her hands, and together they sat through the remainder of the night and well into the morning in silence.

It was at about 10 o’clock that a knock came on the door, startling Harry back to consciousness and prompting Pepper to leap from his arms. Landing with a soft thump on the floor nearby and dropping onto her haunches to groom her whiskers. James pushed himself up onto his feet with a sigh and the crackle of stiff joints, stifling the urge to yawn. “That’s probably Bill.” He said. “Go and pack your things, Harry. The sooner we get you to the Egyptian Ministry and back to England the better.”

Harry had no arguments in regards to that much and headed for his room while James went to open the door. Finding, as he’d suspected, the young Curse Breaker standing on the other side. “Please tell me you have good news.”

The smile that Bill managed to put forward was worn and small and didn’t fully reach his eyes. “The Goblins came through for us.” He said. “We have an hour to get to the Egyptian Ministry. The floo will be open from noon to 12:30.” A pause where Bill peered at him in concern. “Did you sleep last night, James?”

The Auror reached up to rub the exhaustion out of his eyes. “Is it that obvious?” Bill chose to take that much as a rhetorical question. James wasn’t certain if he was grateful for it or not. “Come in. It’s already bloody hot outside.”

“Thank you.” The younger man slipped inside and closed the door behind him, though the heat which had managed to get in through the opening hung about them with a dogged determination. “How is he?”

“Harry?” James asked. “He’s taking the prospect well. Is eager to leave, actually. Though I do have a question for you, since you’re the one who works with all of..well, this. Harry said last night that he’d dreamed of the Pharaoh before coming here. Do you have any explanation for how that could be possible? It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Not a coincidence, no. But both possible explanations are mild to complete dross, depending on who you ask and when. And, sometimes, how drunk they are.” He said. “It’s either reincarnation or a Wrinkle in Time. He’s either seeing his past life, or his own future. Regardless, it seems like Ta-hem is involved and he wants him back.”

“And it's scared him. Scared him worse than I’ve ever seen.” James balled his fists at his side, his lip curling. “If I ever get my hands on that scaley bugger, I swear-.”

“I understand that you’re angry, and I can’t blame you for it, but trying to duel with Ta-hem or fight him physically isn’t a good idea. Not only is he capable of things we couldn’t even imagine, it’s clear from what he did to Windsor that he has strength beyond a normal man.” He said. “Our best chance of successfully dealing with him is to stick to our plan. Find him. Stun him. And seal him back in that pyramid.”

“I know.” James said, reluctance tinging every word. “But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to have the chance to give him a nice, Muggle punch in the jaw. See how vane he is then, with it hanging off his face.”

“Is that Bill, James?” Lily’s voice filtered in from the kitchen.

“Yes, dear.”

“Well, come over and have a seat at the table. We’ll have some tea while we wait; Harry shouldn’t be much longer, and from the sound of it we’ll have to head back to the Ministry soon.”

“Well,” the Auror motioned the younger man passed him, “let’s listen to the woman, before she comes over here and drags us to the table herself.”

The little raven emerged from his room a handful of minutes after they’d all sat down and joined them at the table, drinking his tea in silence and holding his shrunk down trunk in his lap. Feet tucked up under the chair that he was sitting on. With ten minutes to go before noon, they apparated back to the Egyptian Ministry and made their way quickly through the atrium to the floos. 

“Alright, love.” His mother said gently, running her fingers through his wild raven hair. “The floo will open in just another minute. You have enough on you to take the Knight Bus back home?”

“Yes, Mum.” Harry reassured her. “I’ll be fine getting home by myself. And staying there by myself until all of you get back. Just worry about yourselves; he’s dangerous.”

“Your mother and I will be fine, Harry.” James promised. “So will all the others.”

Whether or not his son believed him, the Auror couldn’t tell at a glance. Nevertheless, he turned to Bill and held out his hand. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Bill said, returning the handshake. “And I’m sorry, Harry. For getting you into this.”

The little raven just nodded and turned towards the fireplace. Bill, James and Lily following his example. Flames sparked to life inside the hearth, not the emerald green color that they should have been but a dark nightshade. A tide of hissing scarabs pouring free in a wave of clacking limbs and chittering mouthparts. Harry yelped and scrambled backwards, dropping his trunk, eyes wide in alarm. The beetles swarmed closer. Sweeping over anything in their path and pushing relentlessly onwards. More and more of them spilling from the crackling flames, forcing the four of them further and further away from the hearth.

“What the bleeding hell is going on?” James demanded, having to shout over the clamour. “What are those things?”

“Flesh eating scarabs.” Bill flicked his wand, a tongue of blue fire lashing out to cut off the advance of the handful of beetles which had managed to stray uncomfortably close. The approximately rodent sized insects only momentarily cowed by the light and heat. “Ta-hem must be keeping track of him somehow. He’s trying to prevent him from leaving! We need to extinguish the floo: they’ll keep coming until we do!”

“I’ll get it.” 

“James-!”

But the Auror didn’t give Lily the chance to finish her protest. Leaping forwards, shifting midway through the motion into the form of a stag, and bounding towards the crackling hearth. Crushing insects into smears of brownish goo beneath his hooves with a series of sick sounding crunches until he was able to catch the golden lever attached to the grate with his antlers. Dropping the heavy metal cover over the hearth and snuffing the flames with a strangle, sizzling hiss. The onslaught of beetles dissolving into foul smelling dark green smoke.

The instant James shifted back, he pulled off his left shoe and pointed his wand at it. “Portus!” The shoe trembled in his hand, glowing a pale shade of blue, and then the light of the spell faded into the slightly scuffed brown leather. “If the floo won’t work, fine! You’ll take a Portkey straight home. I don’t give a toss if this is illegal!”

Harry took a moment to glance around them and insure there wasn’t anyone who was paying enough attention to them to potentially witness the creation and usage of an unregulated international portkey before he reached out and took it. A familiar hooking sensation caught behind his navel and he vanished from sight.

The three left behind had barely had the time to sigh in relief before, with an echoing crack, Harry reappeared and hit the tiled floor with a painful sounding thump.

Groaning, the young wizard sat up and, in a rather defeated manner, held up his father’s shoe. “Portkeys don’t work either.”

James set his jaw, eyes narrowed. “Then we’ll apparate.”

“Don’t.” Bill said, catching a firm grip on the other man’s arm. “He’s stopped the floo. He’s stopped a portkey. There’s already enough of a danger of splinching in a normal instance of apparition. If we try to do so while he’s interfering, you might well be ripped limb from limb or just killed outright. It’s not worth it.”

“He’s right, James.” Lily said. “There’s an airport in Cairo. We’ll get him a plane ticket and send him back to London that way; he might be able to sneak by whatever means the Pharaoh is using to keep an eye on him by using non magical means.”

Irritation clear in the set of his face, James ran his hands through his hair. Leaving it even more badly ruffled than it normally was. “Alright.” He said. “I’ll leave handling that to you, Lily. I don’t understand that Muggle transport nonsense with the tickets and the customs.”

“He doesn’t seem to be interfering with apparition within the boundaries of Egypt,” Bill said. “All the same, it might be best to take Muggle transport to the airport as well, to try and avoid tipping him off.”

“We should be able to catch a cab on one of the city streets.” Lily had already started walking, taking the lead of their little four person group. Digging through the bag on her shoulder as she did so. “I know I have some Muggle money in here somewhere.”

They exited the Egyptian Ministry through a series of staircases and came up into the facade of a crumbling building. The navy blue and white cab they’d managed to flag down and pile into whisked them swiftly away to the Cairo International Airport; the rounded white form of the main terminal gleaming in the light of the desert sun. There were people and turnstiles and vendors cluttering the space, palm trees growing up towards skylights at various intervals, and a nearly overwhelming hodgepodge of sights and smells but the crippling weight of ever mounting nerves prevented Harry’s usual curiosity from coming through with enough strength for him to care. He simply stood beside his mother as they shuffled their way through a steadily moving line towards the ticket booth. Harry turning over his-now resized-trunk to be booked as luggage and receiving a ticket and a white smile from the woman behind the desk. The walk to terminal B-3 and the near hour that he spent sitting and waiting passed in a blur. When the time finally came for him to board the plane he bid his parents farewell, shook Bill’s hand once more and then followed everyone else down the slanting walkway and over to his assigned seat, as designated by the boarding pass that he’d been given.

He’d never been inside of a jet before. The interior was a great deal smaller than he’d have expected from the outside. The high whistling whir of the idle engines were a constant ambience as he settled into the narrow chair, a well dressed businessman to his left and a window looking out onto the wing of the plane to his right. Somehow, despite not having the ability to make use of a sonorous charm, the pilot managed to make his voice sound through the entire length of the plane. Explaining that the ‘flight attendants’-which Harry assumed was in reference to the well dressed, constantly smiling woman who stood at even intervals down the aisle, holding detached seat belts over their heads-would go over the safety procedures before they ‘were allowed to taxi onto the runway’ before going silent again. The young wizard watched detachedly as the procedures were run through, feeling the massive jet rumble to life beneath him and begin to roll.

It rumbled over the pavement for what felt like forever before beginning to suddenly pick up speed. Faster and faster. Pressing Harry back into his seat as the nose tilted upwards. The ground falling away outside the window. Egypt dropping off beneath them as they climbed closer and closer to the bright blue desert sky.

He hadn’t been stopped. 

The plane had taken off without a problem.

Nothing had happened to the giant machine that wasn’t supposed to. Finally, Harry was able to let himself relax. The tension bleeding from his shoulders. His body pressing back into the uncomfortably hard cushions of the backrest and his eyes falling closed. All he had to do, now, was wait and in five hours he’d be home.

The man beside him said something, the words sounding clumsy and half mumbled. Even unable to make out what they were, something about them struck a chord in his mind as familiar and he opened his eyes again. Glancing over. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“Ounn pet ounn, tje kher’e.” The man repeated. Harry’s blood became ice in his veins as his head turned, revealing the bloody red eyes which glared out from his face. “No escape, Starlight.”

A loud bang echoed from outside. The plane began to shake violently. The little wizard spun towards the window, eyes going wide at the sight of a handful of black specks tumbling away towards the ground. He only had time to realize that what he was looking at were feathers before another bird flew headlong into the well of the engine. Followed by another. And then another. And then the plane was enveloped in a massive flock of the things, so thick that the sky around them was blotted out with churning black forms. Flames flickering to life along the wing as the engines screamed.

And then the plane was tilting downwards. Falling out of the sky. Harry’s hair lifting up towards the ceiling and his stomach cramming itself back into his chest and up his throat. His fingers biting into the metal and plastic of the armrests beside him. Screams and shouts of horror rising up from the cabin around him, at once cut off into the crunch and crackle of metal meeting earth. 

Then darkness.

He woke up faintly sore and smudged in dirt, but somehow little worse for where beyond the uncomfortable weight of a massive sheet of metal pressing down against his back. The stench of blood and flames and jet fuel burned his throat and lungs but nothing seemed broken. All of his limbs worked. He managed to wedge a hand out through a hole in the rubble where he’d been buried but failed to pull himself free or displace the weight atop him when he made an effort to do so.

Gasping a few times and coughing on a mouthful of smoke and sand, Harry cried out “help!” for all that he was worth. Hoping someone, aside from the Pharaoh who’d somehow possessed his fellow passenger and sent a plague of birds to crash the plane, would hear him. Flinching violently when another hand gripped his, causing the wreckage atop him to emit a hollow sounding clang. 

“Harry! Oh, thank God!” 

“Dad!” The relief which came with the realization that it was his father, and not Ta-hem, who had grabbed him was almost enough to knock him out again. “Dad! Get me out of here!”

The weight bearing down on top of him lessened, then lifted as the giant piece of plane which had collapsed atop him was levitated free. Another set of hands, which soon turned out to be Bill’s, reaching in to pull him free. The fang hanging from the Curse Breaker’s ear glinting in the harsh desert sunlight as he hauled him to his feet and propped him up. His mother’s nearly bone crushing embrace consuming his vision an instant later.

“Careful, Lils, he might be hurt.”

“He isn’t.” Bill said. “Look at him. No blood. No bruises. That monster killed over 200 Muggles to keep him here. He wasn’t about to risk Harry would die with them.”

“To be able to cast a protective spell that strong…” his father’s voice trailed off into a growl before he said “we need to leave. Go back to Eirafa, at least. And...think of something else. Regardless, we can’t be caught here when the Muggle authorities arrive.”

His mother pulled back enough to look down at him, an unplaceable expression lost somewhere between terror and relief painted across her face. “Do you still have your wand, baby?” Harry nodded dully, then rested his head back against her shoulder. He felt incredibly tired. Almost as if he’d been magically drained. Or maybe it was just the stress of what he’d been through. Either way, all he wanted to do if he couldn’t go home was go back to the house where they were staying in Cairo’s magical district and sleep. Maybe forever. He wouldn’t be able to escape from Ta-hem that way, but at least in his dreams of the past his Pharaoh wasn’t plotting to kill him to bring his consort back to life. At least then he represented safety instead of a dire, unrelenting threat. He didn’t bother to ask about his trunk. A cursory glance at the mound of twisted smoking metal and shattered hydraulics was enough to tell him what had happened to it.

Dully, still trapped in something of a state of shock, the little raven allowed his parents and the young Curse Breaker to lead him away from the place where the plane had fallen. Feeling the unseen eyes of the Pharaoh, even then, burning into his back like the relentless heat of the Egyptian sun. 


	8. Egyptian Nightclub

Harry hadn’t bothered trying to listen in on what the adults were talking about. Trying to overhear and involve himself in what they might be doing next, or how they intended to both handle the Pharaoh and keep him away from him. As soon as they returned to the resort in Eirafa he’d picked up Pepper, tightly closed the window to his room-heat be damned, he wasn’t leaving such an easy point of entry open for Ta-hem or anyone else to use-and clambered into bed. Falling asleep within minutes.

He didn’t dream. And that fact came as a relief to his exhausted mind. Harry didn’t want to see his Pharaoh. Not right now. A part of him didn’t want to ever see him again, but a larger portion remembered the way that the ancient man had looked at him in those visions of the distant past, the actions pain had driven him to and the suffering he’d been put through by his grief, and realized that more than anything he felt sorry for him.

That didn’t stop the jolt of fear from flooding through him when something tapped against the window that he’d closed just hours before. Nor did it make him prone to react with any sort of welcoming emotions towards the dark figure standing on the other side. That was until he realized that the silhouette was too short and too slight to belong to Ta-hem. Huffing in annoyance and grabbing his wand from where he’d left it on the bedside table, Harry tore across the room and ripped the window open. 

“What the  _ hell _ , Draco!”

“Happy to see you again too, Potter.” The Malfoy Heir drawled, folding his arms across his narrow chest. “You know, normally people who have close brushes with death in massive accidents are in a better mood when they see one of their friends.”

“It’s the middle of the night.” Seeing movement a bit further off into the courtyard garden, Harry’s green eyes shifted towards another figure which he recognized a moment later as belonging to Ron. “What are the two of you doing here? Do the Weasleys know? Does your father?”

“Rather rich of you to make an appeal to authority after spending 7 years running amok in school at night.” Draco said. “I’ve heard enough about Muggle entertainment from Granger that I’m curious and want to see what it all boils down to for myself. I’ve been asking around, found a couple local Muggleborns, and was told that there is a Muggle establishment called a ‘night club’ not far away from here called  _ Osiris _ . Ron and I are going, and we thought you might want to come with us. Unwind a bit. Forget about everything that’s going on for a while.”

“You want to sneak out into Muggle Cairo without telling anyone with an ancient mad man running around? Did I hear you right?”

“You did. And you also seem to have misplaced your Gryffindor courage if you’re really afraid of a bit of fun, Potter.” The Slytherin said. “Come on, lion boy. Don’t tell me you’re really such a scaredy cat.”

Harry felt one of the small muscles in his face begin to twitch. “You’re really going to do this to me, you wanker?”

“Yes. Come on. We’re leaving; we’re going to be caught if we hang around out here much longer.”

“Come on, Mate.” Ron piped up from where he stood among the doum palms. “It’ll be fun. And you’ll be less likely to run into that Mummy in the middle of Cairo than here, he knows where you’re staying.”

Well, Ron had a bit of a point with that much. But considering the fact that Ta-hem had known not only that he was making an attempt to leave Egypt behind but the means through which he was doing so, Harry suspected he might be aware of his location regardless. And something told him he wouldn’t be able to take his mother’s cat to a nightclub.

Still…

“Fine. Hold on.” Honestly, Harry couldn’t believe that he was doing this. Cursing himself up and down under his breath, the little raven clambered over the windowsill and dropped into the garden below with the crunch of gravel beneath his scuffed trainers.

“Does glaring at me like I just killed your owl make you feel better?”

“Draco, if you keep talking, I’m going to shove my wand so far up your-.”

“Weren’t we supposed to be leaving?” When Ron was the one diffusing the situation, the universally accepted reality was that something terrible had gone wrong. The blonde and the raven threw a last glare between each other, then sighed and reluctantly started walking.

“Do you even know where  _ Osiris _ is, Malfoy?”

“I did ask directions, Potter, yes.”

“Is there a reason that you’re dragging me along as a third wheel?”

“Oh, come on mate.” Ron complained from Harry’s left as they stepped through the resort’s gates and out into Eirafa at large. “We’re not that bad when we’re together.”

The small handful of times that Harry could remember finding himself with the misfortune of being caught alone with Draco and Ron after the start of their relationship at the tail end of their fifth year-when they’d finally realized their hatred for eachother was misplaced attraction, or something. Harry still didn’t really understand what the hell had happened or why and didn’t think he really wanted to know-somehow always managed to devolve into he seeing something he didn’t want to or receiving an up close and personal reminder of just why it was that he considered his best friend to have the world’s worst taste in men. Of course he was along for the ride, now, much to his personal chagrin, and his pride wouldn’t allow him to jump off the burning ship until it sank.

Hopefully that sinking would be figurative and not involve any further encounters with Ta-hem.

Going out into a Muggle city with two Purebloods who had absolutely no idea what was going on, and one of whom had never seen a car before in his life, turned out to be the type of interesting experience the little raven didn’t want repeated. Kind of like having all the bones in his arm vanished by some random, apparently famous idiot by the name of Lockhart during his second year. Though watching Draco nearly get run over might count, in some ways, as a cathartic experience.

The nightclub they’d set out to find was a large two story building built into the image of an ancient temple; a squared off, two tiered structure with seams of colored lights lining the roofs and a fountain adorned with the lit up statue of a God out front. The word  _ Osiris _ hung over the doorway in glowing pale blue letters, underwritten by a set of hieroglyphs. Music thudded so loudly from inside that it was fully audible from the street and the interior was comfortably chilled by air conditioning and filled with strobing lights.

Harry lost track of his two companions within minutes, finding himself marooned and alone in the crush of writhing bodies. The vibrations of the music rumbling up through the soles of his feet and into his bones and somehow making him feel even more out of place than he already did. He tried to make his way towards the nearest wall, to get out of the way of all of the madness before anyone could notice him and pull him in, but only made it a third of the way there before hands found his hips. Drawing him back against a larger form; wide chest and broad shoulders. He turned his head in an effort to see who it was, but the flashing colored lights foiled his efforts to make out clear features. Smooth skin. A handsome face. Sharp eyes, focused in on his every motion like a hunting jackal. It wasn’t until one of the lights swept back across them, revealing the bare shoulders and the golden collar around his throat, that he released with a swooping sense of panic exactly who it was.

His shout would have been drowned out by the music had it been given the chance to escape his lips, but Ta-hem silenced his voice with a heated kiss. Mouth soft and hot against his. Tongue tasting strongly of iron as it invaded his own. His mind was screaming, but his body knew his Pharaoh and he found himself going weak in the knees. A pleasant lusty haze beginning to cloud his thoughts until they slowed and the panic seemed less important than it should have. A different heat taking its place in his blood as the ancient King continued to nudged him gently through the crowd. Spinning him in his grip and pushing his back firmly against the wall with a thud which was drowned by the thumping bass.

Harry was granted a brief respite to catch his breath as the Pharaoh pulled back to look at him. Sliding those pale, long fingered hands under the bottom of his shirt and up over his chest. He no longer looked half mummified. His face had been restored to its former beauty, though dark stains of blood remained littered around his mouth. He’d eaten someone recently and a detached part of Harry wondered, as the man bent his head and began to lick and nibble at a spot on his neck which made his toes curl, if it had been someone in or around the club they now stood in. This was a monster who wanted him dead. A tyrant who’d murdered hundreds just hours before for the sake of keeping him trapped within his grasp. And yet the little raven was powerless in the face of his own desires. His arms raising themselves to wrap around Ta-hem’s shoulders. His fingers tracing senseless patterns along the contours of his back. 

He’d thought he’d felt everything there was to feel of their encounters in his dreams, but memories or visions or whatever they really were had nothing on the reality of having physical contact with his Pharaoh. Touching him was intoxicating in a way that was truly dangerous, and only left him wanting more. Blind to the consequences, or maybe just uncaring.

When the tyrant King reached down to hook his leg around his waist, he shifted his balance willingly and kept it there of his own accord. When he pressed himself close to his smaller form, pushing him back into the wall and causing their hardnesses to rub together, Harry whined brokenly into the precious metal which braceletted his captor’s throat.

“You know that you are mine, Starlight. Your being remembers. Even if your mind does not.” His lips moved against the shell of his ear. Breath hot where it wafted over exposed, sensitive skin. “You know, now, how I make you feel. Because I know you. I know how to make every desire that you’ve ever had real. You’ll want for nothing, Har-ri. I promise you that.” He could smell the scent of him, over the sweat and alcohol and artificial cold of the club. Sand and serpent and perfume. A comfort and a horror all in one. His rational mind slowly beginning to resurface from its trace as the assault on his senses lulled. “I know that you’re afraid, but death will only be temporary.” His fingers pressed into the wing of his hip, so tightly that Harry was certain there would be bruises left behind come morning. “I will not make you suffer. Not like they did.” Rage and grief warred at once in his voice, leaving it a strange broken timbre that he’d never heard before. Ta-hem pressed closer to his pulse as he said it, as if to reassure himself that it remained. “You’ll be whole again. And I’ll make you happy. Like I did back then. Until eternity. As long as the sky still exists. Don’t you remember our promise?”

He did not, under any circumstances, want to be ‘made whole again’. He had to find some way to give his captor pause, if not fully convince him better of the effort, in the hopes Ta-hem wouldn’t just walk off with him while no one else was there to prevent it. Heart rate rapidly picked up, once more from fear rather than the violent flare of arousal which had first overcome him at the Pharaoh’s touch, he reached out to cup the man’s cheek. Ta-hem instantly pulled back enough to look at him, though he still remained so close that the tips of their noses brushed together. “You love me, don’t you?”

“More than even the Gods could hope to comprehend.” The answer was immediate. “Why do you ask me such a foolish thing?”

“Because, if you love me, it means you want me to be happy.” He said. “I’m happy like this. With my family. With my friends.” The Pharaoh’s sanguine eyes narrowed. Sensing danger, the hairs rising up along his arms, Harry almost stumbled over his own words in his efforts to say “you don’t have to ‘restore me’. We can stay together like this. You and I. And them. Settle down. That sounds nice, don’t you think?”

The ancient King made a rumbling sound that Harry realized, after a moment, was laughter. His lips pulling up into an almost mocking smile. “A conqueror does not ‘settle down’, Starlight. Not until there’s nothing left to seize. No one left to break until they bow.” He said. And Harry felt his heart sink inside his chest. “I will ‘settle down’ once I’ve laid this world to ruin at your feet, and rebuilt our empire as it always should have been. However, if it would truly please you, and they stay out of my way, I will spare your family and friends that they might see our glorious new world. I will not, however, leave you broken. Every moment that you suffer is an affront of the highest order. A disgrace I will not stand for.”

“I’m  _ not  _ suffering, Ta-hem!”

“You do not realize it. But your spirit cries for that which it has lost. I can feel it as I stand here, holding you. You are less than what you can be, and I will not leave things this way! Of course, there is one thing left to do before I can relieve you.” His breath was hot and sweet against his lips as the Pharaoh leaned impossibly closer. “Where is my scepter, Starlight?” It had been taken to the museum in Cairo. An incredibly powerful, incredibly dark object: he’d overhead Bill and the others talking about it and how absolutely disastrous it would be if it fell back into his Pharaoh’s hands. There was no way he was going to answer that question. He shook his head and watched the tyrant frown. Dread writhing in his belly at the sight of the expression and the infinitesimal way the grip Ta-hem had caught against his chin tightened. The tips of his fingers, and his manicured nails, biting into his skin. “It’s alright if you won’t say, Har-ri. You don’t need to tell me. You only need to  _ show me _ .”

Harry had heard of the mind arts, legilimency and occlumency, but had never trained in either and as such was powerless to put up even slight resistance against the mental intrusion which pierced his mind like a lance. He yelped and tried to recoil but Ta-hem held him in place. The conversations that he’d overhead and the numerous occasions where Hermione had shown them pictures of the museum in Cairo and excitedly explained how every museum on earth had a set of magical archeologists who studied the relics and remnants of sorcery left behind from the ancient world. He slid to the ground when the Pharaoh released him, clutching his head as if he expected his skull to fall apart into two halves.

“So that is where they’d taken it. Seems it isn’t far from here.” He stepped back from where the little raven now sat curled against the foot of the wall. The flashing strobe lights made his red eyes appear even more ghoulish against the pale backdrop of his face. “When next I see you, Har-ri, it will be to take you with me to your tomb. Soon, Starlight, you’ll be restored. And then we can begin the effort to rebuild our empire.”

The Pharaoh was gone a moment later, vanishing into the surrounding crowds like wind blown sand or a wisp of smoke. Leaving Harry alone to struggle to his feet, wincing through his watering eyes, and lurch towards the door. Ron and Draco were off somewhere among the crush. He couldn’t see them through the mass of bodies surrounding him on all sides. Maybe he’d feel worse about abandoning them in the Muggle world if circumstances were different, but there simply wasn’t time for him to waste trying to find them when Ta-hem knew where the scepter was. The artifact that was to him what a wand was to a modern wizard and would focus his already terrifying power further. The object that Bill had made very plain was something that should be kept from him at any and all costs.

Spilling out of the open door and into the desert night, Harry scrambled to the street and flailed his arms wildly about in an effort to flag down a cab. Eventually managing to do so and flinging himself into the back seat. He couldn’t go back to Eirafa Alley and try to let his parents and the other adults know. There wasn’t time. By then, the Pharaoh would have retrieved the Scepter and the gem meant to be set into it and there’d be nothing left to keep him from putting all his focus and horrific power into the pursuit of dragging Harry away into the desert. He’d just have to stop him himself.

Flinging a handful of galleons into the coin pail and hoping that the driver wouldn’t question the strange coins, the wide eyed young wizard met the man’s bored gaze through the rear view mirror. Sparing only a passing thought to notice how pale his face had gone. “Take me to the National Museum!”


	9. The Wrath of the Pharaoh

The museum was closed at that time of night, all of the many windows studding its front darkened and staring blankly out onto the streets. The cab driver didn’t ask questions, a fact for which Harry was grateful, and didn’t linger after the little raven had disembarked onto the cold pavement and closed the door with a metallic snap that rolled across the empty grounds like thunder. The red glow of the vehicle's tail lights swiftly vanished into the distance, leaving the little raven alone with only the faint glow of the moon and the stars overhead. 

Heart thudding in his chest, each breath coming with an almost painful sense of strain, his green eyes darted around in confusion and fear. Jumping from shadow to shadow. Expecting each and every one of them to suddenly rise up and reveal the familiar form of his Pharaoh. But nothing happened. Harry hurried up the path to the front door, tapped the handle with a soft “Alohomora” and yanked it open. 

Silence and more darkness greeted him. The remnants of the past and the numerous posters and walls and plaques which had been prepared and erected by the Muggles to explain what had been discovered about them cluttering the space and casting strange, threatening silhouettes about the contours of his vision. Lighting the tip of his wand and wincing at the flare of painful brightness, Harry approached the directory which stood a handful of paces away. Scanning the tiny letters which littered its surface.

_ If I were an ancient, potentially catastrophically dangerous dark object from almost 5000 years ago where in a museum would I end up being put? _

Harry honestly had no idea, and the more time he spent standing there staring at the different colors smeared senselessly across the glossy face of the map in front of him the more the twisting sensation of anxious anticipation and dread mounted. Finally prompting the young Gryffindor to abandon the effort to use it entirely and go tearing off into the museum’s halls. Passing displays full of stonework tools and cases of ancient clothing and a mounted tablet etched with hieroglyphs left so faded by time that the shapes they were meant to form were all but impossible to make out. His footsteps echoed around him off the polished tiled floors, distant walls and cavernous ceiling in a way that left him half convinced that someone else was there. But every time he paused-too abruptly for any potential pursuers to realize his intent and stop as well-he was met with nothing but silence.

Still, he wasn’t convinced that he was alone and the fear did not lessen its press against his throat. The crush of its grasp around his lungs, stopping them from fully expanding and leaving him gasping. Breathless. He went up steps and down hallways and around corners. Panic mounting every moment. Eyes bouncing from place to place, from display to mural to written explanation to artifact. Finally, out of the corner of his gaze, catching the faintest trace of a red gleam down another nearby hallway.

He turned fully to face it and stared into the darkness, thinned by the brilliant glow of his wand but not fully banished. Seeming to breathe and hiss around him, threatening and venomous. Not all that unlike the ancient man that he was running from. The King that he was stealing from.

His Pharaoh would be furious. This might be a terrible idea. Maybe it would be better to just let himself be taken, let himself be killed, than resist and risk everyone he loved who’d come with him to that land of ancient magic and forgotten dynasties and imprisoned evil be hurt in the effort to protect him but doing so felt too much like a defeat for him to bear. And so he lurched down the hallway and nearly tripped into the glass covered case at the far end.

There, resting atop a cushion of satin the deep blue tone of the night sky, sat the fist sized ruby that he’d seen in his dream of that boat on the Nile. The one which the hooded cobra coiled about Ta-hem’s heavy scepter had grasped in its fangs. Harry’s hands shot out. Hasty. Clumsy. His knuckles knocking painfully against a pane of glass that did not budge. He pushed. The glass did not budge. Driven by fear which left his blood thin and cold, like the snow melt run off the mountains surrounding Hogwarts in the spring, he pounded his fist against the obstacle in front of him and only succeeded in producing a raucous clang which echoed through the silent building and had surely alerted anything else that might be lurking within its walls of his exact position.

Hissing, Harry raised his wand and pointed it at the glass case. “Reducto!” A flash of pale light and the case shattered. Pulverized shards of glinting silver tumbling to the floor and crunching beneath the soles of his trainers as he stepped forward and grabbed the stone. Felt the smooth, glassy facets bite him. The residual darkness trapped inside agitated by his touch. Ignoring the burning pain even as it quickly began to mount, Harry turned and started to run back down the corridor. Noticing the shadow coming towards him a split second too late and shouting in alarm with hands grabbed him. Writhing in the grip of warm fingers as he was drawn back into a restraining embrace.

“Harry! Harry, stop!” 

That voice. He knew that voice. It wasn’t Ta-hem. He hadn’t been grabbed by his Pharaoh. Clutching the stone in his hands so fiercely that his nails broke against its sloping contours, the little raven gasped like he’d been drowning in the Black Lake before finally managing to force out “Dad?”

“Yes. It’s me. Stop flailing.” With that confirmation, it were as if all the energy he still retained vacated him at once. Leaving the young wizard to go limp in the Auror’s arms. Head lulling forward and chest heaving with heavy, wild breaths. There were more footsteps coming towards him. Lit wands rounding the corner, revealing the stark faces of Sirius, Bill and his mother. 

“Oh, thank Merlin! You found him!” His mother said, over Sirius’ own sigh of relief. Only the Curse Breaker seemed wary, his eyes focused on the stone clutched in the young man’s burning fingers.

“Harry,” his words were delicate, but his stance was rapidly slipping into something reminiscent to that which Flitwick had taught them in Dueling Club. “Why do you have a piece of the Scepter?”

Suddenly, all eyes were on him and the stone. Looking at the ruby as if expecting it to explode at any moment. Harry’s own thoughts were swimming and it took far longer than he’d have liked it to for him to pull together the necessary awareness to string together an explanation. “Ron and Draco wanted to go out to a nightclub and they dragged me along.” He said. “I didn’t think he’d find me in Muggle Cairo but he did. He’s completely human now and he’s after the scepter. He used legilimency on me to get the location of it. He’s coming here to retrieve it and we have to find both pieces and leave before he can!”

“What?” His father demanded, hazel eyes horrified behind the round frames of his wire rimmed glasses. “Harry-. Why didn’t you come back to get us? What were you thinking, rushing here on your own? If we hadn’t realized you were no longer in your room and used ‘Point Me’ to find you, you might have ended up dealing with that monster alone!”

“There wasn’t  _ time _ !” Harry all but shouted it at them. Feeling that sensation of panic beginning to rise again within him, clawing its way higher along the contours of his ribs. He tried to lurch forward, but his father kept him restrained. His arms pinned to his sides as he struggled. “He’s restored himself completely. All he needs now is the scepter and then he’s going to put everything he has into coming after me and you can’t stop him! We need to get it before him; put it together and try to use it or at least keep it away from him! He might already be here! We have to find the other half!”

“James.” There was urgency to Sirius’ voice. “Harry’s right. If that snake bastard is done putting himself back together and having the scepter fall into his hands would end up being half as bad as Bill here seems to think, it’s better we have it instead. We can worry about everything else later, including giving Prongslet here a good talking too for being too good at living up to the title of the Heir of the Marauders.”

Lily turned her green eyes onto Bill, no room for negotiation left in her expression or tone. Her face the mask of a lioness as she addressed the Curse Breaker beside them. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“We informed them that it had been found in two pieces on opposite sides of the tomb and that we weren’t certain what the results of putting the full scepter back together would be. So, until they had succeeded in researching the artifact enough to feel comfortable in predicting the outcome the team here decided to continue keeping them apart.” Bill said. “The staff is on the opposite side of the museum.”

“If it’s on the opposite side of the museum, then we should get moving.” James said, finally releasing his grip on Harry enough that his son could step away from him. The little raven taking full advantage of the opportunity and bolting again. Turning left, back the way he’d come, only to correct himself when he heard his father call “wrong direction!” Catching up with the four adults a handful of moments later.

Bill led them around a series of corners and then across a hanging walkway to a massive hallway lined with windows against which the darkness outside pressed its fanged muzzle. The largest features in the space were a set of 7 meter statues carved from onyx and decorated in gold, one of Anubis and the other Ra-Horakhty, and hung behind them high on the wall was the smooth black shaft of the scepter.

“We made it in time.” Bill almost sagged in relief. It was true. The hall was empty. The Pharaoh, it seemed, had yet to arrive. How much time they had the little raven didn’t know but he supposed it was better to simply take what you could get than look a gift hippogryph in the mouth. “Ta-hem isn’t here.”

“How do we get it down?”

“James is the best with Charms of all of us here.” Sirius said, clapping his friend on the back. The sound loud enough in the silence of the hall around them to make the little raven flinch. “Why don’t you do the honors, Prongs?”

His father raised his mahogany wand and pointed it at the staff. “Accio!”

Nothing happened. The ancient artifact didn’t move. Didn’t so much as shudder in the hooks which held it aloft. It simply hung there, inert, as if no spell had been cast.

“It must be charmed against such measures. Not surprising; a warrior wouldn’t want to risk being so easily disarmed.” The young Curse Breaker turned to Harry. “Try using Parseltongue. It worked with the door. It might work with this.”

Harry nodded and turned his full attention to the staff on the wall. Focusing on the pattern of scales intricately carved into the unknown metal. On the flared hood around the sculpted cobra’s head. Felt the magic rise up within him and shift across his tongue. He raised his wand, flicking it in the familiar motion of the same spell his father had just used, and hissed “ **_:Accio:”_ **

The relic was eager to obey the request and lifted from its moorings. Sailing through the air and meeting his outstretched palm with a sturdy smack. The ruby he was still holding almost seeming magnetized in its presence, clicking firmly into place behind the needle-sharp fangs. The symbols etched across its length flaring with a brilliant, bloody light as the serpent carving seemed to coil and writhe in response to the stone’s return. The artifact’s hiss joined by a chillingly familiar one from the doorway behind them.

“I believe you have something that belongs to me, Starlight.” The Pharaoh was drawing closer at a calm, steady pace. His gaze focused on the scepter clutched in Harry’s hands. “Why don’t you come to me and hand it over? This doesn’t need to be difficult. Or painful.” The sight of four raised wands did nothing to deter the ancient King, only seeming to amuse him as a ferocious grin spread across his handsome face. 

“No one’s handing over anything to you.” James raised his wand a bit higher and stepped in front of Harry. Joined by Lily on the raven’s other side. “And you’re not taking our son anywhere.”

The Pharaoh came to a stop, at last, just beyond arm’s reach of them. The grin never faltered as he tilted his head to the side. At once curious and looking like a serpent coiled back to strike. “Oh?”

“You’re outnumbered, Ta-hem. Alone.” Bill did an impressive job of keeping the fear he must have surely been feeling out of his voice as he addressed the monster just in front of them. “We don’t have to make this ‘painful’ for you.”

The grin stretched into a sneer; ugly and frightening and rictus on his face. His red eyes glittering with malice. “You think yourself clever, peasant?” He said. “Shall we see if my friends agree?” Raising a hand towards the two towering constructs to the left and right of where they stood, between the Pharaoh and the now empty wall, he snarled something in the ancient language. Stone and metal cracking as the statues, impossibly, moved. Stepping down from their pedestals with echoing thuds and raising the golden axe-staves in their hands.

Harry wasn’t sure if it was Sirius or Bill who pushed him, but the next thing the little raven knew he was being propelled forwards. Clutching the completed scepter to his chest and scrambling towards the hanging metal walkway which bridged the display room they were standing in with the main portion of the second floor. Ta-hem lunged for him, pale fingers catching his arm, their grip biting through his clothing, only for a Stinging Hex from his mother to force him to let go. 

“Keep running!” James nearly threw him forward and onto the bridge. “Take the scepter and get back to Eirafa! We’ll deal with the Pharaoh and his statues!  _ Go!”  _ Harry tried to catch his balance, tripped on his loosened laces and went down hard on his hands and knees with a thud. Managing to scramble back upright and keep running a moment later and making it across the bridge a split second before another Reductor Curse reduced the hanging supports to dust and sent the metal crashing to the ground two stories below. 

But the ancient King was not deterred by either the blockade the remaining four attempted to pose nor the gulf of empty space and took a running leap over their heads. Sailing through the air further than should have been possible across the gap. His form rippling in mid air until he landed with a thump on all fours in Harry’s path in the form of a Sphinx. Sharp teeth on full display and a bone shaking growl rumbling in the barreled chest of his lion body. The feathers of his flared wings-jewel bright hues of sapphire and emerald and gold-rustling in threat.

“My patience is at end! Even for you!” His voice had been reduced to a terrible roar which lashed against the walls around him. The monster’s advance forcing him back towards the edge. Harry glanced back. Glanced down. Down at the twisted piece of metal which had once been a walking bridge. At the shattered bits of glass and stone left scattered about on the tile floor. Across the gap, the other four had likewise been cornered by the advancing statues. The spells they fired off at them glancing harmlessly off their stone and metal bodies. “You have a choice, Starlight. Hand over the scepter and come with me. Or watch them die.”

“Harry!” It was Sirius’ voice. His Godfather pausing briefly in the futile effort to force the statues back to look back at him. “Don’t! We have this under control! Get out of here!”

But they didn’t. And he knew it. And even if they had, how was he supposed to get away when one direction offered a fall that would shatter both his legs and the other was blocked by the Sphinx with its body coiled to pounce and its claws scratching furrows in the tiles? Clutching the staff for all that he was worth, if only for the fact that he had nothing else to cling to, he met the gaze of the Pharaoh’s furious red eyes. “Call them off.” He took pride in the fact that he kept his voice from shaking. “Call them off and I’ll go.”

Ta-hem straightened from his predatory crouch and roared. The statues halted for a moment, before turning back towards their pedestals. Harry wasn’t given the chance to see if they returned to where they’d been standing, though, because the Pharaoh circled around in front of him. Fur and feathers obscuring his vision. His hands shook, almost imperceptibly, as he held out the staff. Watching those sharp, knife sized teeth close gently around the shaft and lift the artifact from his grasp before the sphinx crouched again. So low, this time, that his belly brushed the polished floor. The expectation inherent in the action was clear, even before the impatient growl rumbled through the Pharaoh’s body. Drowning out the cries of the other four.

Harry caught fistfuls of hot, wiry fur and he pulled himself up onto his back. Settling being the withers of the wide, tri-color wings. Ta-hem took a moment to look him over and assure himself that his seat was steady before he raised up onto his four, shield sized paws and spread his wings to either side. Crouching, momentarily, on the lip of the drop before he sprang into the air and swooped away towards the glass paned front doors. Crashing through them and rising away into the star studded night.

“Where’s he taking him?” When there was no immediate reply, James rounded on the young Curse Breaker and seized him by the collar. Almost lifting the other man off his feet. “ _ Where _ is he taking my son? He’s going to kill him! We have to  _ find _ him!”

“I-I don’t know!”

“ _ Well, how do we figure it out?” _

“James!” Lily grabbed her husband by the arm, her own knuckles white and her features drawn taut. “This won’t help us get Harry back.”

“He’s right, Prongs.” Sirius said. “Is there anything we do know about where he’s going?”

“If he wants to resurrect Har-ri, then he’d go to his tomb.” Bill said. “But...we don’t know where it is.”

“Well, is there anywhere that we can go to look? The tomb? Those murals on the walls talked about their relationship, didn’t they? Maybe they have information about where the Royal Consort was buried!”

“It’s worth a try. That shaft was sealed before we opened it; was the only part of the pyramid that wasn’t defaced by the stonemasons. The hieroglyphs there are still intact; if they have any information about where Har-ri was buried, I’ll be able to read them.”

“Let’s get moving! Every second we waste could be a second Harry doesn’t have!”

Four pops of apparition rang out, bouncing off the uneven contours of the rickety walkway and the towering walls of the excavation. The mouth of the uncovered tomb gapped darker than black against the side of the pyramid. The sand gave way beneath their feet as they crossed towards the door, descending single file into the slanted shaft. The pale glow of their wands bending shadows against the carved walls.

Bill slowed his pace only once the images etched into the ancient stone transitioned back into the Pharaoh’s story. Scanning the images until he arrived at the tail end, near to the door of the burial chamber, and bringing the lit tip of his wand close to the murals. Running his fingers over the depressed marks left centuries ago by bronze chisels. “The border of the conquered Kingdom. Right of Thuban’s gaze in the shaded valley. Thuban was the North Star before Polaris. And ‘the shaded valley on the border of’...bloody hell, known history says those hills weren’t used as a burial sight until the New Kingdom and yet, thousands of years before the reign of Akhenaten, a tomb was cut there. No doubt it was meant to be temporary, more of a ritual chamber than a real necropolis, but it’s there nonetheless.”

“Marvel over the edits to history as we understand it later, Weasley! Where did that bastard take my Godson!”

The Curse Breaker took another moment more to stare at the wall in front of them before he turned to face the other three. “The Valley of the Kings.”


	10. Until Eternity

With the city far behind them and nothing but the desert sand below, there was no light pollution to be found and Harry didn’t know if he’d ever seen so many stars. The icy wind of the night battered his face and made his green eyes water, forcing the little raven to batten as far down as he could against his captor’s back. Burying his face in the hot, wiry hair of the Sphinx’s pelt while his powerful wings beat the air to keep them both aloft. 

How long had they been flying? Minutes? Hours? Harry couldn’t tell. There were no markers for him to attempt to make out through the darkness of the night. The blue stripe of the Nile winding its way in the near distance to their right. The little raven had given up on the effort of attempting to work out where he was quite some time ago but couldn’t contain his curiosity when he felt the Sphinx begin to descend. Raising his head enough to catch sight of ragged granite walls as they came in for a landing on the stone scattered floor of a valley. Ta-hem dropped into a crouch a few moments later to allow the young wizard to dismount, and then shifted back into the form of a man. The foot of the scepter clacking against the earth. 

“This will not take long, Starlight.” He reassured him, stepping forwards and reaching out. Harry controlled the urge to flinch back and allowed the Pharaoh to gently take hold of his jaw. Ta-hem leaned over him again, close enough that he could feel his breath on his face, but not closing the last fraction of distance to transform the near-threatening loom into another ravenous kiss. “You do not need to be afraid. All will be right again, with the sun’s rebirth. And yours.” The Pharaoh released him, then, and stepped around the little raven’s form. Starting up a steep slope towards the mouth of what, at first glance, appeared to be a cave before Harry noticed the wind-worn remnants of flared columns which held the entrance aloft. “Come.”

He could run. For all the good it wouldn’t do him, if he really wanted to he could turn around and bolt into the night and hope he made it back to civilization’s relative safety before dehydration or scorpions or exposure killed him. But that would be the coward’s option, and would only delay what the little raven had come to realize was inevitable. Ta-hem would never stop hunting him until he’d succeeded in his effort to ‘restore’ his supposedly broken soul. The past that was his future would never leave him alone. One way or another, reincarnation or Wrinkle in Time, this place and this night would be the one in which Harry and Har-ri bled into one another. So he didn’t run. He turned and followed the Pharaoh up the steep slope and into the ancient opening in the side of the cliff face.

Ta-hem had stopped a few paces beyond the doorway, only his sanguine eyes reflecting the faint glow of the stars overhead like the eye shine of an animal. He seemed pleased by the younger man’s obedience and showed off his pointed canines in a pitiless smile. Waving a hand and sending flames racing down the torches which lined the walls. The foot of his staff clinked along the stone passage as he led the way down into the tomb, only to stop again at the crossroads of a receiving chamber. They were met here by another set of statues with falcon heads, these much smaller than the two at the museum had been; only coming up to about Harry’s chest. The Pharaoh addressed them sharply, his tone clearly implying some form of command, and then turned his gaze to the little raven.

“They will attend you, and bring you to the ritual hall once my preparations are complete.” The head of the scepter slid beneath his chin. The cold press of faceted stone and metal fangs against his neck an unspoken threat. “Cooperate with them.”

Ta-hem left him, then, standing in the flickering torchlight beneath the stone gazes of the two constructs. Walking up the hall directly in front of them, while his new wardens took Harry by the hands and pulled him down the passage to the right. The space was at least the size of the room where he’d been staying in the resort and filled with lavish furniture. The golden leafing delicately worked into its sides tarnished and clouded with age but the wood unchipped and the lacquers still rich in their color. He was made to exchange his jeans, shirt and trainers for rush sandals and a length of white linen wrapped around his waist. The little raven was then seated on a lion footed stool and doused in perfumed oils. His face painted with kohl and ocher and malachite powder smeared over his eye lids.

There was no shawl. No adornments of silver and emerald. But the two constructs he’d been left in the custody of seemed to consider him ready as they ushered him out of the room and up the same passage he’d seen the Pharaoh ascend before. Finding himself standing in a massive chamber with smooth walls of alabaster, a moat filled with mercury ringing in the raised stone platform which sat at the walkway’s end. Two stone altars stood in the middle, one empty and the other occupied by another sarcophagus. Its sides painstakingly decorated in black and gold and its lid displaced and lowered to the floor. Ta-hem stood over it, looking down at the wrapped figure inside with bald pain on his face. He acknowledged Harry’s entrance with a slight shift in position but didn’t turn around.

“Lie down.” He didn’t specify where. He didn’t have to. Wobbling on weakened knees, relieved that the falcon-headed statues had seemed to stop following him, Harry crossed to the empty altar and pulled himself up onto it. The stone icy cold where it pressed into his bare back. He flinched slightly at the sound of approaching footsteps. The Pharaoh appeared in his line of sight a moment later. Pressing something smooth and cool into his hands. “Hold onto this. The heart scarab will protect you while you’re in the underworld.” Harry craned his neck forward to peer over his chest at the thing that he’d been handed. A tiny amulet, about the size of his palm, carved into the shape of a beetle out of pale green stone. He was only allowed a momentary glance before the ancient King’s fingers slid up into his raven hair and pushed his head back. “Lie still, Starlight. Your passing will be swift.”

The hilt of the dagger was etched from gold and lacquered in indigo and aquamarine. Its blade formed from a single piece of bronze; seamless, wide and flat. Deadly sharp in the light of the bracketed torches as the Pharaoh raised it high over his head. Harry’s heart beat louder than a funeral drum trapped inside his ribs, the desperate thudding of his blood in his ears almost enough to drown out the ancient incantation and the sound of footsteps rushing towards them.

“No!” His father’s voice, followed by the thud of an impact and the Pharaoh’s ferocious snarl. Harry’s eyes popped open and he rolled up onto all fours atop the altar, only to be immediately met with the sight of a tangle of flailing limbs as Auror and King wrestled on the ground. Both clambering for the handle of the knife. The two constructs had been engaged by Bill and Sirius, and his mother was rushing in to join James but didn’t quite manage to reach him before Ta-hem caught a grip on his throat and flung him backwards with a roar.

“ _ Damn  _ these  _ interruptions _ !” He snarled, rising from the ground and slamming the butt of the scepter against the granite tiles. “I will not be denied! Not again! I have given you  _ far  _ too many chances, yet time and again you insist on defying your King! I will not suffer you  _ any longer!” _ Harry was left to sit there helplessly, his wand left behind in the lower chamber along with his modern clothing, and watch as the Pharaoh shifted form again. Not the cobra form he’d used to infiltrate his room at the resort nor the sphinx form he’d taken him from the museum with but another creature entirely. A terrible amalgam of three ferocious beasts: the head of a crocodile attached to the maned front of a lion and the powerful rear legs of a hippopotamus. Hundreds of white, peg-like teeth reflecting the light of the dancing flames. “When I’m through with you, not even your  _ souls _ will be left!”

Despite its size, the monster was fast. Its lung only narrowly missed both of his parents and shattered the solid stone beneath their feet with an ear snapping crack. A flurry of spells in every color struck the beast, only to reflect off its thick hide. Its sunken, glowing eyes tracking his father’s motion as he tried to dart around the far side of the sarcophagus. Hissing and recoiling, briefly, in pain when a cutting curse landed across the front of its jagged muzzle. Ta-hem’s efforts to pursue the Auror around the altar lead to failure as he darted around one side and then rushed back. The Pharaoh, unwilling to lunge with abandon for fear of crushing the ancient coffin and the mummified body inside, finally resorted to leaping over the altar entirely. His landing unsteady on the other side; the thin strip of stone more than enough for human feet but leaving the massive paws of his beastial form struggling for purchase.

A struggle which lasted only a moment before the Pharaoh slipped. The back half of the monster falling into the mercury with a splash, splattering the liquid metal across the wall behind him. Ta-hem screeched in rage and tried to find purchase with his foreclaws and drag himself back onto solid ground, but the stone was too hard for them to find a suitable grip and he slipped further. Resorting to resuming his human form in a desperate effort to cling to the edge. 

Flooded with a sudden sense of urgency, the little raven slid off the altar and rushed across the platform. Stopping beside the head of the coffin as uncertainty returned beneath the Pharaoh’s panicked gaze. “Starlight!” His handsome face was bloodless and wretched with terror. Eyes wide and brown curls in wild disarray. He looked more human, then, than Harry had ever seen him and it made his chest tighten painfully. “Starlight, please! Help me!”

His grip was slipping. Feet failing to find lasting purchase on the platform’s smooth sides. Fingers scraping at the ancient floor. The little raven hesitated once. Twice. Then took a single, unsteady step forwards. Whether or not he might have gone on to take another, or made an effort to pull Ta-hem back from the brink of falling, Harry never got the chance to know as his mother grabbed him by the shoulders and held him in place. His father, wand clutched in his fist, approached the dangling King instead.

Ta-hem raised his head to look up at him. Hatred joining the fear in his expression. Lips pulling back over his teeth. “May you be forever cursed to watch all that you hold dear vanish before your eyes! As I’ve been forced to!”

“You’re not exactly in a position to be cursing people, ‘your majesty’.” He crushed the Pharaoh’s fingers beneath his heel, forcing the ancient King to release his grip and fall. Ta-hem went under, only to resurface a moment later. Flailing. Clawing at the walls. Desperately trying to catch the rim and pull himself back up, only to discover it was out of reach. His strength rapidly draining, motions becoming more and more sluggish as the scarlet glow dimmed from his eyes. His head went under again, but this time he didn’t resurface. Harry forced to look on in horror as his Pharaoh’s hand-still reaching for a rescue which did not come-sank out of sight.

“It’s over.” James said, turning to face them with relief lighting his features. “Thank Merlin.”

But Harry didn’t feel any sort of solace in the face of the ancient Dark Lord’s defeat. The end of the danger that he represented, to all of them and to the world as they knew it. He’d seen his Pharaoh as he’d been in life in his dreams. Had seen how he had suffered in his first banishment, and would now be left to suffer again, when they’d first opened his coffin in that long forgotten tomb. And in the moment where their eyes had met as Ta-hem had hung there, clinging desperately to the hope of life, he’d seen what his Pharaoh really was. What he had been, all along. A man ruined by grief after losing the only point of light in his life, and who’d turned to hate and vengeance to assuage his pain because that had been the only other thing he’d ever known. 

There was no triumph in this. It wasn’t a victory. It certainly wasn’t something to celebrate. Harry turned away. Pulling himself free of his mother’s hands. Hunching forward and fumbling at the edge of the open sarcophagus for something like support as he pressed the hand not clutching the stone scarab to his face. His eyes squeezing shut.  _ You didn’t deserve this. _ He felt as if he couldn’t breathe. Ribs suddenly pressing too tight around his lungs. Vision blurring at the edges with something more than the onset of tears as his fingers tightened around the stone of their own accord. _ I wish someone had saved you.  _ It was hot, in that tomb. The air heavy and humid and oppressive. His skin stretched too tight across his chest and limbs as he lowered himself to his knees. He’d lost almost all sight, now. His hearing drowned out with the hum of insects and the hiss of wind through reeds. His fingers splayed against stone, but it felt as if he was touching the slick mud of a river bank. The smell of the Nile threatening to pull him under as he gasped for breath. The scarab searing hot against his hand as unconsciousness threatened.  _ I wish _ **_I_ ** _ could have saved you. _

Something yanked behind his naval at the same moment that the stone beneath him tilted up and forward and everything went black. And then he was falling. His body seeming to unravel, coming apart at the seams as an unplaceable force pressed him mercilessly forwards through a crack in reality even thinner than those navigated by apparition. Down and down and down he went until the little wizard was convinced he’d fall forever, lost to whatever darkness that he’d somehow managed to find his way into as the scarab dragged him onwards. Until, all at once and in a blinding flash, the press of black lifted. In its place the moon and stars and the sensation of tumbling through thin air from a height at which Harry was in no way comfortable with being in the absence of a mount or broom, or at the very least a floor. Though he was rapidly losing that altitude, even as he struggled for purchase both physical and mental. Where was he? How had he gotten there? How had he wound up so high up?

He wasn’t given any real chance to attempt to answer those questions before his fall came to an abrupt end. Later, he’d consider it a mercy of good luck that it was the river that he hit instead of the desert, but in that immediate moment of time all Harry had the mental capacity to acknowledge was the chill of the Nile, how incredibly deep the river was and just how much of it was currently forcing its way down his nose and throat. The heart scarab that he’d been given slipped from his grasp. Surrendered to the depths as he struggled towards the surface. Gasping and spluttering once his head broke free of the water. Flailing in the current until he managed to reach the shallows and then collapsing in the mud. All traces of energy drained from his limbs by whatever the bloody hell had happened to land him there in the first place, the little raven simply lay where he’d fallen. Cheek and chest pressing into the sticky muck. Breathing in the powerful scent of silt and reeds and listening to the strange noises of the waning Egyptian night around him. Finally losing his battle to stay awake as the first shades of sunrise lit the sky.


	11. Upon the River's Banks

**Part Two: The Lost Kingdom**

The belly of the reed boat sat low in the blue water of the Nile, the great river scattered with broken shards of pink and orange; strewn about like pieces of glazed faience found to be imperfect for some heavenly figure’s beadwork. The two men who occupied it were slavers by trade. Peddlers of flesh and labor, taken either from the rival Kingdoms which lined the borders of the Empire of the Serpent King or picked from the unwary peasants littering the streets of the countless towns and cities which populated the Pharaoh’s lands. Most went into service as conscripts in the nation’s vast armies, or were sold if they were soft enough to one among countless nobles who served beneath the high throne as the heads of the various nomes. They had just sold off the last of their stock and were a day’s travel down the river from Lahun, vessel heavy with the gold they’d bartered them for, and had resigned themselves to a quiet trip along the river’s current towards Hut-waret on the Nile’s delta yet it seemed that the Gods had more in store for them yet.

Amasis had only just traded off with his partner at the prow and lain down against the woven papyrus floor, as much as a man could hope to lie in so confined a space as the body of the little boat, and was beginning to nod off beneath the slowly mounting heat of the new forged day when he heard the other man exclaim and step back with enough suddenness to rock the boat beneath him. Grumbling loudly to better broadcast his displeasure over the wild motions of his companion, he directed a swipe at the other man as he pushed himself back upright. A glancing blow of the back of his hand landed against exposed shoulder but came to no effect. “Grace of the Gods, what are you doing Ptei? Jumping around and cackling like a Green Monkey! I’m trying to sleep!”

“Sleep later, you dirty cur. _Look_! Along the shore!”

Amasis made a rude gesture at the other’s back, for all that Ptei either failed to see it or failed to react, and heaved himself back onto his aching feet and ankles. The boat listing again, though more gently than before, as he rose. Dark eyes sweeping along the reed crowded bank and coming to a stop on the hint of soft gold and white which winked out at him. A mongoose grin curling on his face. “Lit by the rays of the Glorious, as if the Gods themselves are not yet satisfied with our takings.” He braced his foot against the side of the boat and pointed, commanding. “Row to shore. No point leaving behind a gift of fortune.”

“None at all.” The long, thin gaff dropped into the cool water with a splash. Higher than usual with the near arrival of the yearly flood. Ptei pressed his weight against it, scouring the silty bottom of the river and dragging their little boat closer towards the sloping banks. “The Gods are good.”

Good indeed, when it was their will which brought further fortune to them.

The scrape of reed bundles against bare dark mud sent a sacred ibis which had been picking its way through the muck nearby skyward in a swirl of feathers. It white wings and naked black head glinting in the same glaring light which lit their prize. Lying there, like a child’s doll cast aside in the dirt half in and half out of the rippling shallows, lay a man. A youth, barely beyond his childhood with a lithe thin frame and a healthy roundness to his sculpted face. Kohl black hair scattered about his head in a wild crown and he wore nothing but a shendyt, leaving his golden skin on full display beneath the smears of earth which painted him from head to toe.

“This one would be the jewel of any noble’s harem.” Amasis said as their shadows fell across the unconscious figure. “Even the Pharaoh would pay his weight in gold, if we were to be brave enough to approach his palace in Men-nefer.”

“Men-nefer isn’t far.” Ptei said, glancing at his partner. “Just another day and a quarter up the river from here…”

“And have to see the Son of Apophis at something more than a great distance? You’ve gone more wretched than bird shit left in the sun!” He snapped. “We’ll take him to Dahshur. Clean him up and take him to Sesostris. That bastard noble always has gold for something pretty, whether he needs it or not. He’ll pay for him.”

Ptei’s face was about as pleasing to look at as a wet brick on a good day. Now he looked even less so, but didn’t press the matter any further. As great as the reward for taking the beauty in front of them to the palace might be, neither one of them were willing to risk their lives by stepping within striking distance of a mad asp. “You grab his arms, then?”

“And you his legs.” Amasis said, satisfied that the other man had no plans to challenge him. “We’ll load him into the boat before he gets turned into crocodile bait, or lion food, and clean him up. By morning we’ll have a nice extra profit and can spend the rest of our lives reclining in our riches as if we were kings ourselves.”

The boy wasn’t difficult to lift and carry; light and thin boned like a bird, he slung easily between them while they hoisted him out of the mud and shallows and carried him to the boat.

“Lower. _Lower_ don’t heave, you dog brained fool! He’ll sell for less if he’s bruised and bloodied!” Once they finally managed to transfer their new cargo into the bottom of their boat, Amasis clambered aboard and pulled a sheaf of linen from their supplies. Dropping it over the boy to ensure some measure of protection against the now fully risen sun. “I’ll watch him. Make sure he doesn’t burn or try to escape. Get back to rowing; we still have a ways to go before we reach Dahshur.”

Ptei muttered something under his breath, soft enough that the lapping of the river drowned it, and pushed off from the bank. His mud slicked feet skimming the surface a moment before he scrambled fully back into the reed boat and resumed his rowing post. 

There was no further excitement for the two men as they began their trip anew, this time with the destination of the city a handful of miles south of the Empire’s capital in mind rather than the bustling trade port to the north on the eastern juncture of the Nile’s delta. A handful of other reed boats, all full of fishermen, scattered their journey and for a time the wide sail of a noble’s towering pleasure boat rose high above the surrounding landscape. The shadow of its great wooden hull dark against the blue surface of the water. Kephri aged to Ra, but the boy they’d found slept on. Not stirring as they scraped ashore again on the edge of Amun’s time or even as they lifted him again from the boat. 

“The inundation has begun. With how far the water has already risen, it’s best we drag the boat further inland lest we no longer have it when it comes time to leave.” Ptei slid the gaff that he’d been using along the length of the boat, until it lay flat against the bottom. The sharp length of wood rattling as it was pushed across the woven reeds. “I’ll deal with it. Worry about taking our lovely friend here to the house.”

Amasis wasn’t about to wait around for the other man to change his mind, and try to force the effort of dealing with the boat in the rapidly descending darkness onto him and left the other man there. Carrying the slight weight of their captive through the cobbled streets, occupied only by a last handful of peasants struggling home from a hard day's work in a field or in a weaver's house and the occasional stray dog recovering from the day's heat in the opening of a crooked alley. No one bothered to cast him a first glance, never mind a second one, and he made it to the house without issue or delay.

The ‘house’ was really more of a hovel. Single story and built of mud brick like every building surrounding it, it’s walls were lumpy and bowed and the windows cut into the front had been carved out of alignment; casting a baleful, vaguely lopsided gaze out into the street outside. Consisting of a single room, it had been granted to them by Sesostris as a temporary place to store the ‘merchandise’ they intended to offer for his purchase. Not luxurious. Not even livable, really. But it was serviceable for such short periods.

Depositing their prize on the dust scattered floor, Amasis busied himself with the effort of lighting the tallow candles left scattered throughout the area until Ptei returned. “Watch him.” He bent to lift the clay pot which stood in the far corner. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Get a clean cloth while I’m gone; he can’t be shown in that, it’s stained too badly.”

He was over the threshold before the other man could reply, bare feet tapping over the stone lined streets and down the bank. Filling the pot in the river and making his way back. Ptei had gotten the ceramic wash bowl down from where it had been packed away and the cloth he’d demanded was folded on the floor nearby. 

“Help me get the mud off him.”

It wasn’t a terribly long job, even given how much of it there was. Ptei lifted one of the youths hands and turned it palm up. The veins in his wrist standing out purple beneath his pale gold skin. “His nails are broken but his hands are soft. It’s not from farm work.” He said. “Think he could be noble?”

“It doesn’t matter if he _was_ noble. He isn’t noble anymore.” Amasis snapped. “Get that filthy thing off him. And, while we have him bare, turn him over and check.”

Beneath the thick layer of mud which stained it, the fabric was of a fine grade. The sort he’d have expected to be worn by the Pharaoh himself. It was strange, but he pushed aside what faint misgivings he had and undid the belt that held it in place. Turning the boy onto his front and examining the area.

“Well?”

“Virgin.”

“That fact alone makes him worth not just gold, but silver!”

“Don’t be so excited, Amasis.” Ptei said, securing the linen back around the boy’s waist; rough by comparison and not a proper shendyt, but it would work well enough. “The Pharaoh might have been willing to pay his proper worth, but Sesostris is harder bled than temple stone.”

“Again with your nonsense; keep invoking Ta-hem and he might well hear you! If you’re so desperate to risk your life or worse, then you can go to Men-nefer alone!” When the other man didn’t reply, his face paling at the prospect, he bared his teeth. “That’s what I thought. Now, shut it and tie him. He could come around any time now.”

Ptei didn’t seem pleased at being ordered around so much but did as he was told. Tying the raven’s hands at the wrist with a length of leather. 

“Did you bring up food with you?”

Settling his back more comfortably against the cold bricks of the wall behind him, Ptei said “you were the last one down there.”

“I didn’t see where you put the boat, idiot.”

“Well, I didn’t bring anything up. And I’m not going back out there now.” He pointed at a nearby basket. “Should be some in there.”

Amasis grimaced. “Old bread.”

“Still good.”

An annoyed silence fell between the two as they opened the basket and ate what they could of the well past stale bread inside. Unbroken but for the sigh of wind outside until their little guest shifted and let out a groan.

Harry had never felt so tired as he did at that moment; surfacing from sleep was like attempting to pull himself out of a deep puddle of thick mud, if the mud had been replaced with cold molasses. His limbs were heavy. A Cerberus was sitting on his chest. His head had been swapped out for a boulder and his eyelids had been capped in lead. Where was he? Where were his parents? The last thing he remembered was losing consciousness in the ritual chamber in the tomb, and then he’d dreamed…

Abruptly wide awake Harry tried to jolt upwards only to stumble halfway into a sideways slump, impeded by the bound state of his hands. Unable to stop his head from hitting the bare floor-stone or clay or hard packed dirt, he couldn’t tell when his new surroundings were only lit by a few guttering candles-he groaned in pain. Blinking hard and turning his head in the direction of a shuffling noise, he was confronted with the sight of two men. Their skin baked tan and leathery by the sun and their only clothing the same wrap of cloth he’d seen in the tomb paintings; seen his Pharaoh wear. Their chests and arms adorned with jewelry made from colored beads of glass or painted clay. They had rough faces and unwelcoming expressions; the nearest one leaned forward so quickly it was almost a lunge and Harry arched away on reflex like a frightened cat.

“Sun’s grace, look at his eyes.” That was the language he’d heard Ta-hem speak. That he’d heard Har-ri speak. Bloody hell, he _was_ Har-ri! Not a shattered reincarnation like his Pharaoh had thought but his Consort himself. A Wrinkle in Time. There had only ever been one. Which meant he’d gone back in time. 

4600 years back in time. Forty six centuries now separated him from every one and every thing he’d ever known: an insurmountable barrier of ages. He’d never see England again. Never have that career in Quidditch. Never see his friends or family again. Harry Potter was just another mysterious disappearance with no explanation and no trace. And he was left as Har-ri with ten years and some change to use to save a tyrant from the choices he’d made before he met with a brutal end at the hands of an assassin. He was alone. He’d never go home. He had to be brave.

Tears welled in his green eyes, leaving them bright and glossy in the flickering light, but he didn’t let them fall.

“Green eyes, Amasis!” The nearest one said, for all that he couldn’t make out what in Merlin’s name either one of them were talking about. Apparently he’d either had some spell cast over him the first time to allow him to speak and understand their tongue, or else he’d learned the old fashioned way. Considering he’d never learned another language before, but had been told by Hermione and Draco how difficult it could be, he wasn’t much looking forward to trying to do that. “That’s not natural. He’s touched by-“

The other man swatted the first on the back of the head. Hand meeting with short cropped hair with a low thwap and prompting the first to spit out what Harry could only assume was a curse. “Don’t start with nonsense. If he were favored by the hand of any God, he’d have been brought to the attention of priests. Not us.” Turning his small, cruel eyes onto him the man demanded “do you speak?”

It was pretty obvious that he was being directly addressed but Harry hadn’t the foggiest about what. He simply sat there and stared at him. 

“I don’t think he understands what we’re saying to him.”

“He’ll understand this.” Reaching down to his belt, Amasis drew a crude knife which Harry hadn’t noticed before. Using it to indicate the door. “Try to run,” the blade slid under his chin, prodding threateningly into the soft flesh it found there, “and I’ll cut your pretty little throat.”

‘Knife’ was a universal communication device, as Harry discovered. Slowly so as not to risk mistakenly impaling himself on the sharp point, he dipped his chin into a slow nod. Satisfied, the man removed the weapon from his person.

“Not completely stupid, it looks like.”

The tone was disparaging enough that the young wizard knew he’d just been insulted though he wasn’t certain in what manner. Ignoring the hot nettles of annoyance raking at the back of his neck, he restrained his reaction to a frown. No point in informing them just how much he appreciated being spoken about in such a way when the message couldn’t get across. Huffing, he lay back down and turned his back on them both.

“Well,” Ptei said, “he’s certainly got an attitude.”

“Training him to sit and suck isn’t our problem.”

The constant confusion of what was being said to and about him was making Harry’s head hurt like nothing else, which combined with the mix of loss and terror native to the realization that he was now without anything he knew to put him into a rather foul mood.

Well, maybe there was one thing that he knew in that time. One person. The very same person he’d come to save. But he wasn’t with his Pharaoh now; he was with two strange men who’d threatened him with a knife, tied him up in a mud hut and looked at him with predatory eyes. Not the way that Ta-hem had-obsession and devotion and the mangled shade of what might have been love-but like he was a prize pig to be sold to slaughter for its meat: worth its weight in coin, but of no personal significance. 

It really made his skin crawl.

_Where am I anyway?_ He wondered, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible against the cold hard floor. _Wasn’t Har-ri supposed to be his royal consort? Why did I end up trussed up on the floor instead of in the palace?_ What was it that Bill had said about the Serpent Tyrant’s love? That he’d been given to him as a gift by a noble who bought him from...oh Merlin, these men were slavers! He always had the weirdest bloody luck, to the point where he was half convinced fate itself was trying to kill him. At least once he got in front of Ta-hem the Pharaoh would fall deeply in love with him and he’d be able to start working towards convincing the man that there was more light and beauty in the world then him, sparring the King a fate of eternal torment without rest.

An ancient wall mural wouldn’t lie to him, right? 

It was freezing in that little hut, dressed in nothing but the cloth wrapped around his hips; shorter and rougher than the one that the statues had dressed him in, more uncomfortable and revealing more of his legs. He tried not to think about the implied fact that the two strange men who were currently holding him captive had undressed him while he’d been unconscious and unable to stop them. So the little raven curled up into the tightest ball he could while in his bound state to preserve as much warmth as possible and forced his eyes closed. Ignoring the hunger gnawing in his belly-the last time he could recall eating was the day before the Pharaoh had invaded his room-and the uncertainty of his time stranded status and falling into something that might have been able to be called ‘sleep’. Stirring in the early morning when he heard the slavers moving in the room around him. One of them left through the door and the other remained there, though he didn’t appear to be looking at him.

With how dark it had been the night prior Harry really couldn’t be sure, but he thought the one who’d stayed behind was the same one who had threatened him with the knife. So he just laid there on the floor where he’d woken up, feeling safe enough in the half a floor’s worth of distance which existed between him and the other man, and waited. Watching the door for the other’s return.

Harry never had been particularly good with wandless magic, not that he’d have felt comfortable revealing himself as a wizard in front of his current company even if he was, so he had no way of knowing what time it was. Let alone how long it took the missing slaver to return.

“Did he give you any trouble?”

Ptei shook his head. “None.” He said. “I think he thinks I’m the one that had the knife. Did he…?”

“Yes.” Amasis said. “Sesostris is...interested. He wants to see him immediately; get him up.”

“Make me do all the dirty work, why don’t you?” Grumbling, he got to his feet and whistled shrilly through his crooked teeth. The little raven started on the floor, then turned to look at them. Cheek scraping lightly against the ground. “Up. We’re leaving.” The unnatural eyes were focused on him, but uncomprehending. The boy didn’t move. Huffing in annoying, he stepped forward and grabbed the leather binding secured around his wrists. Yanking him to his feet.

He stumbled slightly at the sudden motion, expression breaking out into surprise, and let out a soft gasp of alarm. Pink lips forming an almost perfect o shape. Ptei prodded him hard in the back and sent him stumbling forwards, not missing the resentful glare the brat had the audacity to toss over his shoulder at him as they followed Amasis out of the house.

Harry rolled his shoulders in an effort to lessen the throbbing sensation the sharp jab had left behind but only spared a brief glare at the culprit as he was led out of the hut like a dog on a leash. His attention quickly shifted to their surroundings instead. The streets were paved in cobbles, pale tan in color and worn nearly rounded by wind and sand and the passage of countless feet. The buildings all single story and small, leaning close along the street and to each other until the city where he’d ended up transformed into a labyrinth of tilted walls and twisting narrow alleys. Sunlight spilled from the pale blue sky, reflecting off the extinguished ceramic lamps and candleholders positioned in the sills of windows and the spread fronds of the palm trees which grew up around it all hissed in the sand and coriander scented wind. A cat sauntered along the foot of what looked to be a home without a care in the world, tail raised and ears perked forward, and didn’t seem to be interested enough in him to spare so much as a glance. The same could not be said for the few adults they passed-an old man reclining against the frame of his open doorway, a group of boys not much older than he was who sat in a loose circle atop linen throws repairing what looked to be farming tools and a woman in a long dress of rippling linen who paused in the act of carrying a woven basket of what looked to be grain to stare-who all watched them pass. Their initial notice no doubt attracted by the way that he was bound, but their interest held by the sight of his eyes.

Green hadn’t been the most common color back home in modern England, all things considered, but it hadn’t been a strange novelty worthy of extended marveling either and beneath the weight of all the scrutiny Harry couldn’t help but blush and bow his head. Speeding his pace as much as his jailors could be persuaded to allow.

The deeper into the city that they went the more spaced out and better assembled the houses became, until at last he found himself being half-dragged through the gates of an opulent manor. Though it had nothing on the ancestral home of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy, where Draco had lived, or what little Harry had seen of the Pharaoh’s palace in his dreams, it was much larger and much grander than any of the other homes that they had passed. Complete with a pleasure garden and a set of walls around the edges of the property, it was built of smoothly sanded mud brick and scattered with dozens of windows, allowing in plenty of light and air. The interior broken up into several different rooms, all of which were stocked full of gold leafed furniture and bulging cushions and exotic pelts; divided up by partial walls and hanging curtains of multicolored faience beads. 

They stopped in what Harry suspected was some sort of receiving room, lavishly decorated with glazed floor tiles and its walls painted with depictions of blue lotuses and flying birds in soft shades of brown and blue. Awaiting them, perched atop a mound of pillows in jewel bright colors like a particularly bloated bullfrog on a rock, was quite possibly the fattest man the little raven had ever laid eyes on. And that was including both his parents’ retired potions professor _and_ his estranged uncle Vernon. A sumptuous wig of gold and sheep’s wool sat atop his head, and his doughty face had been heavily painted with kohl and ocher. His ten, short pudgy fingers glittering with glinting rings of gold and silver. The man sat forward when they entered, his three chins wobbling with the motion and thick lips pulling back over his teeth in a smile that made him feel like he was in desperate need of a bath. Harry growled in annoyance when his captors forced him down onto his knees.

“Oh, is this him?” It took the frog-man a small handful of tries, but he finally managed to heave himself up onto his stubby legs. Waddling across the polished floor with the gentle clatter of the jewelry that he wore. “My, my. When you said that he was beautiful beyond the pall I must admit I didn’t take you seriously. But he’s...exquisite.” A hot, clammy hand slid beneath his chin. Gripping it far harder than was necessary and forcing his gaze upwards. As much as Harry would have liked to look away from the man’s heavy jowled face, he held his gaze and glared. “What incredible eyes. And fire to him, it seems. Where did you get him?”

“He was a draw of fortune.” Amasis said. “And there were only two within the kingdom who I thought capable of paying the cost of such a treasure. The other being the Son of Apophis himself. Think about it, Sesostris. There’s no greater beauty in all of Egypt, or any of the nearest kingdoms. Untouched as well. You could have something that would be the envy of all in the land, including the Pharaoh.”

The man finally released him. Harry immediately took the opportunity to wipe the sweat which had been smeared across his jaw away, shuddering. “I do not relish the thought of standing between Ta-hem and something that he wants.” He said. “Having said that, what’s your price?”

“A silver ring.” The little raven could recognize the glint of greed in the slaver’s eyes .They were discussing payment, no doubt. Arching his back slightly in annoyance, he turned his head to watch. “And five gold pieces.”

The noble frowned, but didn’t hesitate in pulling the ring from his right thumb. Handing it over. “Go and find Na-au and tell him I’ve granted the price that you’re asking.” He said. “You’re to tell no one else of our transaction. Am I understood?”

The two slavers nodded, and turned to slink from the room. Harry wasn’t terribly fond of being reduced to only the thing of interest for the noble, especially given he only seemed to be worth _a single bloody ring_ despite all the apparent fawning over his appearance. He bared his teeth at his new ‘owner’ and, when the man made to reach for him again, snapped at his fingers. 

“They didn’t say anything about being feral.” He grumbled. “No matter. Ta-hem,” Harry perked up slightly in recognition of his Pharaoh’s name, “enjoys extinguishing fires. For all that I don’t want to part with you, it will go quite a ways towards paying off my nomes’ debts. The last thing I need is another visit by his damned collectors. Or worse, Amun protect me, a personal summon to his palace.” A pause where he stared down at him with an unreadable expression. “Do you speak, boy?”

Harry made a face at him in response.

The noble looked most displeased and motioned towards one of the servants who, up until then, had been standing in silence along the back wall of the room. “Take him to the open room in the back, and bring him food. And when you’re finished have that damned sorcerer Utet send for a Priest of Thoth. Mute or merely foreign, we cannot present the Pharaoh with the equivalent of a _baboon_ in human skin! I’ll pay what I must to have him undergo the Rite of Tongues.”

The servant, a man with a shaved head and simple clothing, dipped his head to the noble and then turned to Harry. Pulling him up onto his feet and then towing him through the house until they reached a room in the back, occupied by a low bed and various other expensive furnishings which he suspected, given their general lack of a ‘used’ appearance, were meant for the convenience of guests. After a brief disappearance, the man returned with a wooden lap table full of boiled onions and honey sweetened bread: not much, but after how long it had been since he’d last eaten the young wizard wasn’t about to complain and cleared his portion after only a handful of minutes. Setting the table down on the floor and then lying down atop the dressings of the bed, staring up into the canopy of drifting linens.

He was supposed to end up with Ta-hem because he was gifted to the Pharaoh by a noble. The toad of a man had mentioned Ta-hem’s name; granted Harry hadn’t been able to make out context, but it didn’t seem like too much of a leap to him in that moment to think that the end of this circumstance would be at the royal palace. Putting him precisely where he wanted to be. So, as much as the presence of the noble and the way the man looked at him made him feel disgusting on a level he couldn’t hope to explain he’d grin and bear it and cooperate for as long as he had to.

It would mean he’d land in front of Ta-hem all the sooner.


	12. The Rite of Tongues

For the first time since coming to Egypt, when Harry dreamed it, was not about his Pharaoh. He was standing out in the desert amid a waste land of architecture; the broken heads and torsos of bird headed statues lay scattered from lopsided pedestals. Smooth columns with flared crowns and glazed sides had sunken into the sand. Crumbling wall pieces and disconnected corners stood erect at random intervals and angles, intricately carved and painted with images of serpents and falcons and stars. It looked as if someone, or perhaps multiple someone’s, had attempted to build a temple there only for it to collapse over and over again.

His feet sank into the sand up to his ankles, the heat of it burning his skin as he trudged forward towards the nearest pieces of wall. Reaching out to touch the surface, rough and solid and too realistic to just be a dream. Running his fingers over the painted night sky. The etched coils of the cobra. The carved wings of the falcon, faintly stained the same soft shade of green as the heart scarab that had sent him back.

The silence of the dreamscape was shattered by the piercing cry of a bird of prey and Harry found his vision pulled upwards towards the blood red sky. The moon and sun hung static overhead of him like staring eyes, and though he did indeed feel watched beneath their pinning glow-though not unsafe-he could make out nothing against the smokey clouds.

He could feel a presence there with him. Magic suffusing the sand and stone around him unlike anything he’d ever felt, brushing over his skin and calling to him like clean air and open sky. But Harry wasn’t given the chance to attempt to investigate its source before the desert beneath him ruptured upwards. The hard grasp of unfamiliar hands seizing hold of him and yanking him down into the earth. The vision shattering like a pane of dropped glass as his eyes flew open. Darting about the room as he was yanked upright. The perspective of his vision tilted dangerously before he managed to catch his feet. The soles of his bare feet scuffed softly against the floor. 

He peered wildly around; barely able to make out the shape of a man through the ashy shadows of what must have been very early morning. They were too thin to be Sesostris, the noble that had bought him. So, it was one of his servants then. Perhaps even the same one who’d initially taken him to that room. Whoever they were, their grip on his upper arm was tight enough that the extremity was rapidly beginning to go numb. 

The man who had a hold of him was evidently familiar enough with the layout of the room that he was able to avoid knocking into any of the furniture, even without the aid of any light, but Harry wasn’t nearly so lucky and somehow managed to blunder into everything in his path, knocking his shins and knees as he went and forcing himself not to verbally curse.

When they at last reached the receiving room Harry almost sagged with relief, blinking hard against the near to glaring light which filled the open space; originating from the nearly three dozen candles littering the room, propped up in ceramic holders. 

The flickering glow was even less kind on Sesostris’ appearance than the sunlight had been, throwing unflattering shadows along the places where his girth oozed over the top of the pleated cloth around his waist. Lending him the unintimidating appearance of a squashed muffin. Harry felt something like a laugh scratch at the back of his throat but he bit back the urge and turned his attention to the man that the noble was standing beside.

Thin and tall with a shiny, shaved head his brown eyes were lined in kohl but he otherwise wore no makeup on his face. His only jewelry a broad collar around his neck; squares of polished turquoise strung on threads of glittering gold. He watched in silence as Harry was pushed down onto a length of rough woven linen which had been spread across the floor. Wincing as his knees came into contact with the tile underneath. 

The unfamiliar man’s bare feet came into view for a moment before he knelt on the linen. Making himself comfortable on the floor before turning his attention to him. Something in his expression flickering with what might have been surprise before he turned back to the Noble. “He has the favor of the Divine Falcon.” He said. “You would keep him? Should he not be taken to the Temple Djaru?”

“I will not be keeping him, no.” Sesostris said. “He will be given to the Pharaoh. God touched or not, this has nothing to do with Thoth and as such is no business of a servant of the Lord of Speech. Now, we’ve things to be done yet before we set off for Men-nefer and I’d like to present him to the Son of Apophis before the royal guard closes the palace gates for the night.”

The Priest of the Ibis God sighed, but relented. “I’ll need to call for the assistance of your servants to complete the Rite. The tongue inscription is painful, and I need him to hold still.”

“They’ll hold him.” He said. “Get on with it!”

Harry watched the Ibis Priest’s hands as the man lifted one of the countless candles scattered around them and used it to light a little pot of incense. The smell of something earthy and almost like pine rose immediately into the air, sweet and sticky as it clung to the back of his throat. Resisting the urge to cough, he shifted about where he knelt into a marginally more comfortable position as the long, white feather lying beside the Priest’s knee was picked up and dipped into an unrecognizable potion in an eye catching shade of sky blue, then used to flick tiny droplets onto his face around his temples. Harry flinched on reflex at the cold sensation which misted across his forehead, his eyes briefly squeezing shut.

“Keep him still.” 

His eyes popped open when one set of hands grabbed his arms and pulled them to the small of his back and another set of hands caught a firm grip to either side of his head, allowing the Priest to slide a strange bronze contraption which looked far too much like the bridle of a horse for Harry’s comfort between his teeth; pinning his jaw open. Panic whizzing through his head, confusion pressing hard against the back of his throat, but unable to do more than squirm uselessly in his half-folded position, he was forced to watch as the feather was replaced with something that looked almost like a fountain quill which had been sharpened to a razor point. A razor point which, after being dipped into a bowl of ink, went into his mouth.

He felt the cold metal rest momentarily against his tongue before the tip pierced through. Pain registered as a sharp heat a split second before the taste of iron bloomed across his awareness, sickly as it dribbled down his throat. Harry had thought that the script used by the Ancient Egyptians had been a pretty relic of a long lost world when he’d first seen it, something charming to stare at for a period of time, but hadn’t put much thought into just how many  _ lines _ the symbols were made up of until he had to sit through three of them being etched into the tender flesh of his mouth.

He lurched forwards when the bridle was pulled free and the two servants released him. Spitting onto the backs of his splayed hands; the saliva tinted pink with the blood which dribbled down his chin. But he was only allowed a moment’s respite before the Priest pressed his thumb into his mouth and forced his head back. “Open.” He ordered, using his other hand to slip a folded strong tasting leaf past his teeth and press it against his throbbing tongue. Harry’s jaw clicking shut once it was allowed to close. “That will relieve the pain; don’t spit it out. You can understand us?”

Not particularly wanting to talk with his flayed tongue, the little raven simply nodded. Reaching up to gently rub his jaw with the back of his hand. 

“What is your name, Child of the Horizon?”

He glared at the man for putting him into a position where he couldn’t answer nonverbally so quickly, then grimaced and said “Har-ri.” His voice was muffled slightly by the effort of keeping the folded leaf adhered over his cuts and the numbing sensation which was rapidly taking hold.

Thankfully the man seemed satisfied with him, and turned again to Sesostris. “The Rite is done.” He said, rising to his feet and beginning the effort of collecting the objects which had been used in the ritual. “Is there more that you would have me request of the True Witness? If not, I shall be returning to my God’s Temple.”

The noble made a motion of dismissal in the Priest’s direction but didn’t address him when he next spoke. “Take the boy to Ma. She should be finished making ready to prepare him for the Pharaoh. I want him bathed, oiled, adorned and painted and on the decks of my boat by midmorning!”

Apparently his newly acquired ability to understand and communicate with them didn’t stop Sesostris’ servants from considering physically dragging him places the better alternative to telling him to follow them so Harry again found himself physically hoisted off the floor by his arms and escorted back into the inner rooms of the sprawling manor. The sun had crept marginally closer to rising above the horizon while he’d been in the receiving room, but the young wizard still wouldn’t think to call the hallways that they passed through anything approaching ‘well lit’.

Harry didn’t see another candle until he was dumped into another smaller room, obviously meant for inhabitation by servants. His knees and hands colliding with the ground with a thump. It was while he was gathering himself up into something closer to a dignified sitting position that he heard another voice say “be careful with him, Senb! We don’t want him full of bruises if he’s going to the Pharaoh.” Harry raised his head and caught sight of a woman in a white dress waving the two men that had taken him there off. “Out, both of you. I can handle him alone from here.”

Neither one of them argued, turning and ducking back through the strings of uncolored beads which had been mounted over the opening of the door. The little raven didn’t bother to watch them go, too much of his attention fixated on his surroundings: a large basin of ceramic, sat beside a tall vase painted with patterns of red and blue. Draped over a small stool was another of the same skirt-like articles of clothing which he’d been forced into in the tomb, which his newfound vocabulary connected to the word ‘shendyt’. A glazed box sat atop it, though what was inside he could only guess.

“Step into the basin.” Her tone was stern, the expectation that he would obey what he was being told clear in the expression of her face. Slowly, Harry rose up onto his feet and did as she asked. Feeling the ever so slight shift of the clay bowl against the floor as he did so. “Strip.”

It was said so casually as she turned to pick up another small bowl that the little raven couldn’t help but pull up short. “What?”

The look the woman gave him, then, reminded him painfully of the way Hermione had looked and him and Ron whenever they had happened to ask her something which she deemed sufficiently dumb. “You mean to tell me that every other time you’ve bathed in your life, child, you’ve done so with your clothing on?” There was judgement in her eyes as they fell to what the slavers had left wrapped around his waist. “Not that that scrap of fabric can really be called clothing.”

She wanted him to undress? In front of her? Harry could feel his cheeks starting to burn. “O-oh, I...could you...turn around?”

But the servant woman he’d been left to the mercy of was having none of it. “Remove it from your person or I will remove it for you. There is not time to waste when so much needs to be done to prepare you for showing.”

Reluctantly, if only because he’d rather avoid being divested of what little clothing he still retained by a complete stranger, Harry did as he was asked. Reaching down to fumble with the hasty knot that had been tied behind his right hip with shaking fingers for a moment before he successfully freed himself and dropped the coarse linen onto the ground. Resisting the urge to attempt to cover himself when she stepped forward and pulled a handful of what appeared at first glance to be wet ash from the bowl. The smell of it hitting his nose with a sharp burn as she began to smear whatever it was across his chest; harshly scented by alkaline salt and something herbal. Harry coughed.

“What is that?”

The woman looked at him sharply. “Were you raised by monkeys? It’s soap!”

In hindsight, that made enough sense that Harry really should have been able to figure it out for himself. “I...don’t remember much beyond my name. But no. I wasn’t raised by monkeys.”

“Well, lucky for you that a concubine can afford to be empty headed then.” When Harry tried to reach for the soap, in hopes of taking over bathing for himself, she hissed at him and smacked his hand away. “Keep your hands out of my way! There’s no time for bumbling!”

The little wizard frowned, but held to his conviction to cooperate with proceedings and pushed down the urge to bristle in response. He didn’t attempt to take the soap from her again as it was smeared along his sides and back. 

Harry was given no warning before his bath chamber warden lifted the ceramic vase which he didn’t doubt weighed at least as much as she did and poured it over the top of his head. The icy water inside-likely taken directly from the Nile itself-drenching him from head to toe. Washing the ash-soap from his person and pasting his fringe over his eyes. Harry reached up to push his bangs back and blinked the droplets away. 

He wasn’t given much of a chance for his vision to clear before another cloth was tossed over him. “Dry yourself thoroughly so the Rhondinium oil will set on your skin.”

Harry ran the thin cloth across his hair first, squeezing free all of the water that he could and then making use of its damp state to force his fringe to remain as far back from his eyes as he could get it to go, then turned his attention to his chest and shoulders. The faintest echoes of the Susinum perfume Ta-hem had favored drifting back across his memory as the woman returned with a small pot in her hands.

The perfume inside smelled pungently of roses and smeared ice cold across his collarbone and inner wrists. The chill of early morning filtering in through the small window carved into the wall didn’t help his situation, and Harry soon found himself shivering. Too relieved to be embarrassed when the servant woman wrapped the clean shendyt around his waist and secured it there with a belt adorned in glass beads. 

She set the glazed box he’d seen on the stool earlier on the floor beside the now water filled basin he was standing in and opened it. Pulling out a set of golden arm rings shaped like winged scarabs, stones of green and red and blue inset into each of the tiny feathers, and pushing them up over his arms until they rested just behind the joint of his elbow. A broad collar of gold was secured around his neck, heavy and glittering where it came to rest against the front of his chest.

Stepping back, the woman looked him up and down and then, seeming to pronounce his appearance acceptable, ordered him out of the wash basin. Practically pushing him over onto the stool the second he was out and standing on the tiles.

“Sit still,” she said, dipping her thumb into a mix of oil and powdered green stone, “and close your eyes. If you twitch, your makeup will smear and I’ll have to redo it. And then we’ll be wasting more time!”

By the time she was finished shadowing his eyes, lining them in black khol, and then painting his lips and cheeks with ocher Harry wasn’t certain if he more preferred her treatment or that of the statues in his tomb. Either way, it came as a relief when he was met at the door of the little room by the two male servants and led from the house. Down a thin trail behind the manor and to the side of the river, where a floating dock of reed bundles had been affixed to the shore. Bobbing at the end of it, sail still bound tight to the mast to keep it from straining in the wind, was a towering wooden boat. Its stern arched upwards into the graceful curve of a fish tail, painted in white and orange and appearing to glow in the soft light of the now risen morning sun. Sesostris waited impatiently for them on the deck; Harry had to physically suppress the urge to shudder when his eyes slid over him like something foul.

“I knew that I could count on Ma to make him as presentable as need be.” He said, stepping aside from the top of the boarding plank to allow the wary young wizard aboard. Making no effort to prevent him from moving immediately to the far side of the deck. “Pull the plank up after you, and get to the oars. We’ll arrive in Men-nefer in three hours if we make the time that I expect to.”

The other two men nodded and went off to collect said oars without a word. Unfortunately for Harry, this then freed the frog noble to approach him; proceeded by the wobbling girth of his stomach and the cloying smell of lemongrass. Immediately, he felt his skin begin to crawl.

“Boy!” Steeling himself, the young wizard turned to face the man. Reluctance dripping from every motion. “You’re to be a gift to the Pharaoh. Payment for a considerable portion for the debts I’ve managed to...acquire. As such, I expect you to kneel and be silent when we enter the palace.” There was no doubt meant to be some sort of unspoken threat there. Some implication of ‘or else’. Though Harry found himself too busy wondering how the man intended to do anything to punish him if he truly was a ‘gift to the Pharaoh’ to be anything close to intimidated.

Honestly, in a really weird way, it reminded him of Snape’s efforts to threaten him; spurred on by the man’s-arguably justified-dislike of his father and robbed of any real teeth by his care for his mother-or, perhaps more accurately,  _ fear _ of his mother-who would not have been terribly pleased to learn that her darling baby boy was being poorly treated by one of her friends. An almost crippling wave of homesickness and grief for the family he’d lost rippled through him, then, almost taking him to his knees, and Harry dropped his gaze to the deck beneath his feet. Nodding.

Misconstruing his response for fearful obedience, Sesostris seemed satisfied enough to turn and waddle off. Leaving Harry alone to lower himself to his knees and lean his weight against the sweeping side of the boat. Propping his chin up on his arms and staring out across the Nile to the band of green overgrowth which clung to the river’s side and the pale sand of the desert beyond. Squinting against the sunlight as it reflected off the water and the precious stones and metal which ringed his biceps. The silt and reed scented breath of the wind, blowing up off the water, caressed his cheek and played in his hair as the ties which bound the boat to the dock were released and they began to move along with the current. 

He was here for a reason. He had a goal to cling to. And in another handful of hours, he’d be placed into the precise position necessary in order to stand any sort of chance of achieving it. But it was in moments like these, where he was left to his own devices and absent the press of immediate concern, where the weight of all he’d lost settled itself atop him like a thousand tons of stone. His father’s voice. His mother’s smile. The laughter of his friends. Their names. Were these things that he would forget, over time? Things that would slip away between his fingers like grains of sand, or drops of water? Until they faded and smeared from the sun and the wind to the point where they were no longer recognizable, to ultimately disappear completely. Leaving no trace of Harry Potter behind.

Distress rose like bile. Burning his throat like stomach acid until he feared he’d purge what little he’d been given to eat the night prior into the rippling river below. Eyes prickling once more with the urge to cry. An urge he refused to give into. He’d chosen this. Maybe he hadn’t understood, in the moment, what he was doing but he’d chosen this. And he wasn’t about to go back on his convictions while the image of Ta-hem’s pleading gaze, and the painful knowledge of his fate, remained seared into his mind. So he forced himself to focus on the dance of light and shadow across the dark blue water flowing by beneath the boat; on the way the papyrus reeds and water hyacinth growing along the Nile’s banks waved in the wind; on the people that he saw fishing from little reed boats with drag nets and lines. 

The sun rose higher and higher as they traveled and by the time they finally dropped anchor and docked the golden orb was almost at its highest point in the sky. Sesostris barked at the two servants he’d brought with them to ‘collect him’ and, a handful of moments later, hands had descended on him. The bitter notion that he’d been manhandled more in the last twenty four hours than the whole of the rest of his life bubbling up to the surface of his mind as he was practically schlepped down the boarding plank.

The streets of the capital city were paved in much larger, thinner mud bricks than those of Dahshur had been. Cleaner, much less crowded by the surrounding buildings and far more populous with people who paused in their doings to watch them pass with interest. Men with head coverings fluttering in the wind and shendyts of fine linen. Women in dresses in colors of blue and green and yellow and red, hair elaborately done back in gold and colored beads and gemstones dripping from the jewelry that they wore. Even the massive black oxen which had been left trussed to the front of a cart filled with wooden cages of cooing birds appeared to stare at him. Obviously, the city of the King was a wealthy place. Most of its residence appeared to be well off, if not noble, unlike the near impoverished peasants that he’d seen while the two slavers who had first taken him captive had taken him before the noble.

And looming high above it all, cut at sharp angles and polished to a shine in the morning sun, stood the royal palace. A massive, squared off fortress set dead center of a complex of gardens and numerous smaller buildings all ringed in with walls which towered at seven times his height when he stood flush beneath them. The only means of entry, short of attempting to climb, was through the gate at the front. Flanked by the only set of doors that Harry had seen since he arrived-heavy pieces of sycamore, each appearing to consist of an entire tree, stained to a dark shade of ebony and etched with images of battle and the glory of the gods-and a dozen men holding gleaming spears who watched them pass but didn’t move to stop them.

Beyond the gate, tall palm trees and thick grown tamarisks offered shade to more patrolling guardsmen and the rare servant whose business might take them past the palace’s face. Sandstone statues of rearing cobras lined the paved walk up to the foot of the steps. The entryway flanked by two more serpents, fanged mouths agape in threat as they appeared to ooze from the shadows overhead. It didn’t escape Harry’s notice that there were no men standing guard there. Nor did the fact that both Sesostris and the servants he’d brought with him shied from the statues as if they might suddenly come alive and try to bite them.

The entry hall was a long narrow room, lined in twin rows of intricately painted free standing columns. At the far end, blocked only by a curtain of faience beads in the expected shade of black and flanked by a set of winged sphinx, was another doorway. And standing between it and them as if he had been awaiting their appearance was a man.

A brutal scar cut across his face, leaving his left eye incapable of sight and dragging the corner of his lip down into an eternal grimace. His head had been shaved but for a long black braid which hung down his back and the golden bands on his upper arms were shaped into the image of scorpions. Over his chest he wore a set of armor scaling, done in shades of black and red and gold, and though he didn’t hold a spear a sword hung in prominent view on his waist. Mismatched gaze focused on Sesostris, disregarding Harry’s presence entirely, the battle scarred man peeled his lips back into a sneer which revealed his teeth had all been filed to points.

“Enter,” he said, drawing back the beaded curtain with a grand sweep of his arm. “The Pharaoh is expecting you.”


	13. The House of the Snake

The armored guardsman didn’t move from the position he’d taken up beside the door, nor did he shift his expression, leaving the little group with just enough space to enter through the doorway and forcing them to all but brush passed him in order to do so. Harry wasn’t certain how he felt about the man, he certainly seemed to be dangerous from the way the other three were cringing in on themselves, but given who Sesostris was anyone who could make the toad man attempt to appear smaller despite his in no way inconsiderable girth was passable in his books. Hanging strands of black beads brushed along his shoulders as they entered; clattering against one another like scarabs when they fell back into place behind them, at last revealing the room beyond in all its glory.

Slit windows had been cut high up on the walls; a dozen on each side, they allowed in plenty of light but provided no view of the outside world and thus no distraction from the excessive opulence contained within. Lining them at intervals, growing up from decorative pots, were small doum palms. The high ceiling was held up by more columns, painted and painstakingly carved, and between them was an invariable sea of attendant staff: scribes with lap tables stacked with papyrus on their knees and reed pens in their hands; soldiers bearing decorative weapons; officiates and advisors of all sorts. Beside the massive throne, perched atop a raised stone dias in the center of the room, were two servant girls holding what appeared to be fans affixed to the ends of long wooden sticks. And occupying that throne was, of course, the Pharaoh himself.

Ta-hem reclined against the heavy gilded chair, every facet of his posture at once regal and incredibly threatening. Around his broad shoulders and thin waist were the leopard’s pelt and lion’s tail Harry had seen in his dreams, and the same golden broad collar he’d seen on him in the nightclub still rested against his chest. One ring adorned hand rested against the graceful curve of the arm of his throne and the other gripped the black shaft of his scepter, the ruby clutched in the cobra’s mouth reflecting the sunlight in much the same way as did his eyes and the smaller red stones wrapped in the coils of the serpentine armlets he wore. Atop his glossy deep brown curls sat a white crown which Harry didn’t recall ever having seen before.

The Pharaoh raised a hand as they entered, silencing the man beside him mid-sentence, and turned his head to look but Harry wasn’t given much of a chance to gauge his reaction before he was tipped forward onto all fours.

“Sesostris.” Already his voice held the drawl of displeasure. “To what do I owe the...delight that is a visit by the Nomarch of White Walls? I should hope you would know better than to come before me without good reason when you have not been called.” A pause. “Dare I hope that you have come to pay your debts?”

“Your majesty,” from his position with all but being held down in a forced kneeling position the little raven couldn’t see much of the room around him, but he was treated to a close up view of the incredibly top heavy man attempting to bow without falling forward onto his face, “I intend no disturbance, but I have come into possession of a rare item and thought it would best find a proper home in your hands.”

Ta-hem was having none of the man’s efforts to ingratiate himself and hissed sharply. The sound silencing Sesostris and sending a shiver of fear through all present in the room. “You cannot blind me to your true intentions here with pretty words. You come hoping to peddle flesh instead of gold, and free yourself from the debts you’ve incurred to the crown!”

“Sire-!”

“Do not lie to me!” His voice echoed off the pillars and walls like a clap of thunder. Followed by the rustle of the guards along the outskirts of the room preparing to move forward. “I am not a man to be trifled with and I do not take kindly to deception. Speak plainly what you seek with what you’ve brought me, and I’ll consider allowing you to leave my palace with your life.”

“He is one of your nobles, Ta-hem!” The man who had been quieted upon their entrance spoke up, his own voice nearly as commanding as the Pharaoh’s had been. “You cannot simply kill him! Not when it would leave a Nome headless!”

“He is one of my  _ father’s _ nobles, not one that I put into place. Not one who proved that they were loyal, though nor were they loyal to him. I can do as I wish with him, just as I do as I wish with all others in  _ my _ Kingdom. No matter how ‘difficult’ or ‘damaging’ it might be to replace them.” Ta-hem bared his teeth at the man, malice in his eyes. “Or have you forgotten what I did to your predecessor when I returned to take  _ my _ palace?” Harry peered up through his lashes and raised his head as high as he dared. Catching the other man’s frown as the Pharaoh turned away and rose from his throne. Imposing and deadly as he dismounted the dias and approached. Each step that he took seemed to cause the noble to shrink further into himself. “Speak!”

“I had hoped you would consider him of worth enough to forgive a portion of my debts, Great Lord!” The pitch of Sesostris’ voice had risen into a squeak at this point. His pudgy, short fingered hands gesticulating wildly as if he hoped the sudden movements would somehow protect him from the other man or, at the very least, prevent the Pharaoh from coming too close to him.

“What need do I have for  _ another _ concubine you imbecile!” Ta-hem snarled. “I have enough trouble from my priests about the  _ women _ ! True as it may be that they wouldn’t see reason to involve another man, it might well stir them into swarming me again over the nonsense about my ‘needing an heir’! So tell me, worm, is this meant to be an insult?”

“N-no, your majesty! Never!” He looked more like a frog now than ever with how green in the face he’d turned. Eyes wide with terror.

“You stand beside this as a ‘gift’?” A squeak and a nod. The butt of the scepter slammed against the ground, sending red sparks skittering away across the tiles. One of them landed so close to his hand that Harry could feel the heat of it radiating against his fingers. “Then show him to me. Convince your King why this...boy is worth enough to me that I should let you slink away with your life and an expectation that you’ll pay your debts to me in full.”

Sesostris stood there, mouth agape and quivering before the Pharaoh’s bloody gaze, for a long moment before he managed to find his voice again and stepped up to Harry’s side. Motioning to him with what was no doubt meant to be some sort of grand flourish but fell far short of the mark. “He is an untouched flower unlike any other seen in all of Egypt.” His short fingers grabbed him by the chin and yanked his head up. “His beauty is so great, Sire, that it will surely rank among the greatest treasures in your coffers.”

“One of my greatest treasures?” Ta-hem all but pushed the man aside. His own long, pale fingers replacing the grip on his chin. Harry found himself looking up into his Pharaoh’s face, red eyes shadowed in violet and fixated on his features, and felt his heart sink. His body going very cold. The mural had made it out to be a whirlwind instant connection: a ‘love at first sight’ fairy tale where the ancient King had fallen over himself the very instant that he’d seen him, leaving Harry in an advantageous but rather uncomfortable position where he had to work out his own feelings for the already smitten other man. But it wasn’t love or devotion or even curiosity that he saw in the tyrant ruler’s face. It was a ravenous, terrifying, all-consuming greed. “I think you may be right to say such a thing.” His voice had gone deadly soft. The touch of his thumb as it brushed along the curve of his jaw almost seemed to burn him. “As his beauty is my treasure, it’s only right that I should be the only one allowed to view it. Henceforward, any who are found to have looked upon him directly shall forfeit their eyes.” The smile that spread across his face, then, was almost unnaturally wide. Showing off all his teeth as he turned again to stare at the noble that had dragged the little raven there. “Starting with you.”

What happened next was a sudden flurry of motion and sound. Sesostris let out a wailing plea and threw himself to the floor at the Pharaoh’s feet. Ta-hem slammed his scepter against the floor again and the guards around the room surged forwards. Grabbing the nobleman and his two servants and dragging them, crying for mercy, out of the room. Harry watched the smile shrink down into a smug, malicious smirk as his attention returned to him. Those red eyes almost seemed to run him through as the hand gripping his chin slid slowly down over his throat; even with how light of a touch that it was, it still managed to strike the young wizard as a very present threat.

Then, all at once, the Pharaoh released him and stepped back. His gaze shifting to the scarred man Harry had first seen in the entry hall outside as he approached from behind him. “Guard Captain Nekht,” Ta-hem greeted him in a way that was almost friendly, “yet again your men prove themselves faithful. As I expect they always shall.”

The man flashed his sharpened teeth and bowed his head. “A pleasure to serve the Lord of Lords.”

“Perhaps for those truly loyal.” He turned to the man who’d spoken out just minutes before, a facade of good humor stretched thin across his face. “I think Amunnepthes would disagree.”

The expression on the man’s face was one of pinched indignance. “I serve the High Throne.”

“You serve Amun-Ra, but this is no longer a House of the Sun.” Agitation once again seemed to seize him and the Pharaoh began to stalk back towards his throne. The man beside it, Amunnepthes, refusing to give in to the expectation that he’d cower. “It was my mercy that spared you your mentor’s fate, ‘High Priest’. I advise you to remember that, and be grateful, lest I send you back to your precious Temple in  _ pieces _ !” 

“I am grateful, my Lord.” There was well hidden hatred in the High Priest’s eyes as Ta-hem threw himself back down atop his throne. “Every day.”

“So you claim. And yet, I doubt.” The Pharaoh drawled. “Take the boy to the harem, Nekht. The other concubines are to put him through his paces. I’ll have him tonight.”

This was not what Harry had signed up to go walking into, and now the young wizard couldn’t help but kick himself for ever believing for a moment that the insane tyrant who had been feared and hated by his subjects and ruled with the power of incredibly dark magic would be the sort of man to have a soft enough heart to see him and melt. He should have realized, from what little interaction that he had had with Ta-hem, that the man was not only insane but so fixated on his own needs and desires that even when he  _ had _ carried a torch for Harry he hadn’t thought anything of terrorizing and killing him to achieve his own desires. 

He’d been a fool to think that he wouldn’t have to work for the man’s devotion. Though it was obvious he had some pull on him already, with how quickly he’d turned from not wanting him to deciding no one could look at him without having their eyes gouged from their head. With how ferocious the greed in his eyes had been. He had a foothold, at least. However shallow. And he was nothing if not the typical head strong Gryffindor; he’d push until he got his claws into the man, and then he’d work on trying to show him there were more things he could hinge his happiness on than him.

“Get up.” A rough order, given while looking just to the left of him. Harry felt his knees pop in protest as he rose onto his feet, the noise of the Pharaoh's court resuming full force around him. “Walk.” The Guard Captain didn’t prod him in the back like the slavers had done, but he did point him forward in a way that left no room for argument. Harry cast a last glance over his shoulder at Ta-hem as he went, only to find that the King’s attention had entirely refocused on his various advisors. 

His escort pushed aside the hanging curtain of beads and motioned him back out into the entry hall. Leading him through a handful of hallways until they finally exited through the back of the palace itself. The yard opened up into a small garden with stone beds filled with flowers, fruit-bearing shade trees and a small pond. Harry was made to stop beneath a date palm just within sight of a smaller building with unadorned walls, the entrance to which was curtained in beads of pale red and flanked by statues of a goddess with the head of a cow, for a conspicuously long period of time before another guard approached from a nearby trail.

“It’s finished?” The new comer nodded, not speaking, and the Guard Captain dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Turning to Harry and barking “inside!”

He was shoved forward without warning and almost pitched through the doorway. The beads clattering wildly about him as he skipped once and then regained his footing. Looking around at his new surroundings: what would, apparently, be his home from that point forward. Stone incense burners stood on either side of the inner door, freeing thin curls of silvery smoke into the air and filling the space with the heady scents of myrrh, sweet gum and the same notes of rose he’d smelled in the perfume that he’d been made to wear. The harem building consisted of a single large room with depressions carved into the floor meant to serve as sleeping quarters for the close to two dozen woman who lived there, all dressed in a revealing manner, to the point where their beaded and metal jewelry covered more than their clothing did. But what struck him more than the amount of skin left on display were the scars the lack of covering revealed. Some appeared to merely be a testament to the fact that the Pharaoh liked to bite, but the vast majority-silver lines too straight to be caused by anything other than a blade; raised pink, knotty lash marks; burns-were a testament to much worse. All of them seemed to have been made aware of Ta-hem’s decree as they avoided looking at him, and the Guard Captain, entirely.

The depression in the stone which his escort stopped outside of was curtained off from the rest of the room by hangings of delicate linen; thin enough to see shapes through but no real detail, providing him privacy and everyone else protection from incurring the Pharaoh’s anger. Harry suspected they were the reason for the waiting period out front of the building. Beyond them, encircled by a set of four steps, was an unrolled sleeping mat, a small chest for his belongings and a handful of fine pillows.

“The necessary materials for kohl and ocher can be found in the chest, alongside clothing.” The Guard Captain had not followed him beyond the hanging curtain. “Anything else you need can be requested through one of the palace guards. You’ll be retrieved and taken to the royal apartments come nightfall; until then, the older concubines will be responsible for any...information you might require to serve the Pharaoh properly.”

He wasn’t certain if he was supposed to offer some form of thanks to the man for taking him there, and didn’t particularly feel like he’d done anything to deserve it, so he kept quiet as his figure turned away. Footsteps disappearing back into the garden outside. Alone, Harry huffed and descended the small handful of stairs into his-admittedly more than large enough for him to stretch out and still have space-quarters and began to go about the process of arranging the pillows how he wanted. He’d just settled down atop the resultant nest when he heard a soft voice from overhead.

“Excuse me, child. May I come in?”

Harry pushed himself upright. One of the pillows threatening to burst a seam and spill the feathers which stuffed it as his hand pressed down against it. “Yes.” The curtains rustled softly for a moment before they parted and a woman slipped through onto his side. Older than the others that he’d seen at maybe thirty, with amber colored eyes and black ringlets falling down her back. There were scars visible along her upper chest, above where the threads of green and yellow beads hung over her breasts, but the little raven kept his eyes on her face. “Hello.”

“Hello.” She had a kind face and her smile was pretty. “My name is Zahra. As I’m the oldest of the Serpent Lord’s concubines, I’ve long come to consider it my responsibility to look after the others the best that I can. To prepare them, as much as is possible, for all that belonging to him entails.” An expression of sadness passed over her face. “What are you called, child?”

“Har-ri.” He said, watching her lower herself into a seat on the stairs. Her gaze coming just short of landing on him, resting over his shoulder. “Is...something wrong?”

“Only that another would be forced to suffer an existence as terrible as this.” Zahra said. “I do not know what you’ve been told. Har-ri. I do not know what you have seen of him. But the Serpent King is not a kind master. He is cruel. And we are slaves to his pleasure.” One of her hands came up to the most prominent scar on her chest; raised and pale pink and jagged looking. “Often, it means our pain. He will hurt you. And if you resist him, it will only get worse.”

Did she mean to suggest that Ta-hem tortured his concubines? The scars suggested as much. Bill had referenced him repeatedly as ‘sadistic’. But Harry hadn’t expected this. Was his fate, too, to end up covered in scars? He’d never seen Har-ri from an outsider’s perspective, in his memory dreams, so he had no way of knowing.

“Have you ever lain with anyone?” 

Harry almost choked on his tongue. “Uh...er...no.” He looked away from her, heat rising on his cheeks.  _ Why does everyone here seem so fascinated by the fact that I’m a virgin? Does that really mean so much, in this time? _

Zahra reached out and took his hands. Her fingers were cool and uncalloused. “He will not prepare you, nor will he take mercy.” She said. “The best that you can hope for yourself is that he will finish quickly, and let you go. And that he’ll give you time to heal before he calls on you again.”

After all of the-sometimes ridiculous-injuries he’d managed to sustain throughout his seven years playing Quidditch at Hogwarts Harry had developed a not inconsiderable tolerance for pain, but even considering that much he didn’t particularly like the thought of what he was apparently in for in only a handful of hours. “Is there anything that I can do to...placate him? Anything to distract him, or…?”

She shook her head. “None that I’ve found, Har-ri. For all I’ve tried.” Zahra said. “All that I can do for you is teach you how to avoid offending him.”

Considering how quickly Ta-hem had shifted into a biting anger, both against his mother when she’d walked in on him in Harry’s room at the resort and in the throne room earlier that day, not offending the Pharaoh just before he was expected to have sexual relations with him for the first time in his life was probably a good idea. “Just tell me what I need to do.” The more information on how best to go about handling the Pharaoh that he could gain in the handful of hours he had before he’d be collected by the palace guard, the better his prospects were liable to be.

Zahra proved herself a wealth of information about how to go about presenting himself, from the actions to take when entering and exiting the room to forewarnings of what would likely be asked of him in fairly quick succession, and how he’d be expected to react. Helpful as it would probably prove to be to lessen the rough treatment he was set to go through, it also carried the side effect of leaving him more nervous about the rapidly approaching moment where he’d be called before Ta-hem than he had been already and by the time he was left to his own devices Harry found himself lying on his back atop the pillows staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows lengthen with the approach of evening, worrying. What was going to be demanded of him? What was he going to be made to endure with minimal complaint? His imagination ultimately ran so wild that, when the royal guard finally did arrive to order him out from behind the linen hangings, it came as something of a twisted relief.

Feeling almost nauseous with mounting dread, the little raven drew his shoulders back and followed the two guardsman out into the settling darkness. 


	14. The Pharaoh's Pleasure

The gardens surrounding the harem looked remarkably more threatening submerged in shades of blue and violet evening than they had during the day, and did nothing to help the young wizard’s efforts to swallow his mounting fear and calm the rapid thudding of his heart against his breastbone. The two soldiers who walked to the side and slightly ahead of him had fallen silent after calling him out of his sleeping quarters and now the only sounds around him were the scrape of feet against the cobbled path they walked, the occasional shifting of the wind through the trees and the chittering of nocturnal animals beginning to come awake. All of which were noticeably dampened by the heavy thud of his own pulse in his ears.

Dusk had left the top of the palace’s squared off figure stained in running shades of gold and orange. The hallways that they passed through were devoid of any signs of servants or officials. Torches, hung in heavy brackets on the walls, marked their passage with pools of light and shadow as they made their way between columns and along corridors until the little raven found himself in a hallway that he recognized.

To his right was a solid wall, mounted with torches and carved and painted in a similar manner to the rest of the palace, but to his left a row of decorative pillars opened out into the Pharaoh’s private gardens in the center courtyard. The guttering fire light didn’t extend beyond the hall that he was walking down, and night had fallen thickly enough now that Harry couldn’t see much detail anymore, but he was able to make out the grape-vine overgrown wall which hemmed in the pond of fish and lotuses he’d seen in his dreams. 

His escort parted from him at the mouth of the hallway, leaving him to force his body forwards with unsteady steps until he reached the far end. Here, looking stalwartly forwards and away from him, stood two more guards, spears in hand, astride that familiar door. The door with its black bead curtain which he knew led into the ‘royal apartment’ that was the Pharaoh’s private chambers. 

The thud of his own heartbeat seemed so loud, now, that Ta-hem must surely have been able to hear it from inside but he said nothing. No demands to enter. No greeting. Not a word. The nearest torch let out a sudden cough, making the young wizard jump and turn wide eyes towards it in time to witness a cloud of red-orange sparks go swirling towards the ceiling overhead. Out in the garden behind him, a fish jumped from the water with an audible splash. Harry couldn’t see anything clearly through the curtain in front of him, so close it was almost touching his nose, but he still detected the unmistakable sensation of eyes resting on his skin. The Pharaoh was most certainly inside. Not only that, but he’d seen him. Yet he still didn’t make a sound, choosing instead to observe his reactions like a lion might watch the gazelle it had decided to feast on as it crouched in the tall grass. 

Summoning up all his courage, he reached out a hand and swept the beads aside. Ducking into the room beyond. Going only as far as the light from outside extended before slowing to a stop and lowering himself onto his knees; as he’d seen himself do in his memory dreams; as Zahra had cautioned him to do as quickly as he could manage to once he’d caught the tyrant’s attention. The space was lit by only a single candle, its faint light collecting in his reptilian eyes and making them appear to glow. Strong enough only for Harry to make out the impression of his figure and, were he to dare to approach within range of actually touching the man, an idea of his features. The crown had been dispensed with and the scepter leaned against the wall beside the stool he sat in, always within reach, but he could distinguish no more of what the man had on. 

“Stand.” His voice was soft, but still firm. Never losing the stiff edge of an order. “And come to me.”

As slowly as he dared, Harry did as he was told. Getting back onto his feet from the kneeling position he’d adopted and edging across the cold tiled floor until he stood in front of the Pharaoh. So close his knees butted up against the other man’s, where he sat atop the lion footed stool. Even seated, the brunet’s head came up to his chin and Harry found himself silently cursing his poor genetic lottery for having ended up considerably shorter than both his parents. 

Ta-hem’s hands found his wrists. Fingers encircling them with ease. Touch warm and firm as it traveled up his arms. Over the winged scarab bands he wore. Finally coming to rest against his shoulders and squeezing. Thumb pressing into the divot of his collar bone. Fingertips digging into the meat of his shoulders with the ever so slight threat of his nails. The resulting sensation was surprisingly pleasant and made him go slightly weak in the knees. “What is your name?”

He was going to ask him questions first? Was this some sort of interrogation? Zahra hadn’t mentioned anything about the Pharaoh being interested in knowing anything about him beyond, perhaps, how loudly he could be made to scream. “Har-ri.”

“And how many floods have you seen?”

_ Floods of what? Is that some sort of trick question? _

He must have given him a blank look of some sort, because the other man raised an eyebrow and clarified “how long have you lived?”

Who asked someone's age by talking about ‘seeing floods’? What did that even allude to? “Seventeen.”

“A fine age.” He smiled. There was none of the malice in the expression he’d seen earlier, and it transformed the result from a terrible sight to an incredibly disarming one. Those large, weapon calloused hands moving from the sides of his shoulders to the tops and squeezing harder. Kneading into the muscles there and physically forcing the accumulated tension to drain from him. “I was a year younger than you when I took my throne, after my father attempted to rob me of my birthright.” There was a purring quality to his tone now which Harry wasn’t quite certain what to make of. “That was five years ago.” So he was twenty one? Only four years older than Harry was himself. The age that his parents had been, when they’d had him. What kind of life had he lived to turn him into such a monster? Was it a product of how he’d been raised? Was it a result of the deal he’d supposedly made with the ‘Demon’ called Apophis? Or had he always been raving mad from the beginning? “Where are you from?”

It was incredibly strange to find himself standing in front of the ‘Serpent Tyrant’, being calmly questioned on mundane matters while having his shoulders worked as if he were a mechanism for stress relief but Harry would rather draw this out as long as he could. Even if the questions were beginning to become more difficult for him to answer without lying or giving away the fact that he was from almost 5000 years in the future, long after the Egyptian Empire had been buried by the ever moving sands of time. Because it meant that the Pharaoh wasn’t going to attempt to push forward in the effort to bed him. “Beyond the river.”

“Beyond the river?” There was a tint of amusement to his smile, now. His ruby eyes glittering in the dancing candle light. “You’ve nothing more specific than that for your King, Pretty One?”

‘Pretty One’ wasn’t the pet name he’d ultimately coined for him, wasn’t quite as memorable as something like ‘Starlight’, but it still sent tingles of strange heat racing from his head to his toes and then back again. “Forgive me, My Pharaoh. I don’t remember more than that.”

His eyes narrowed, and something like fear curdled at the base of Harry’s spine, but Ta-hem didn’t seem more than minorly displeased. And only for a brief moment before his face smoothed over again. “I want you to do something for me.” He indicated the table on which the lit oil lantern was sitting, beside three other smaller pots of the sort meant for containing perfumes. “Smell those. Tell me which one you like.”

Harry stared at the Pharaoh in silent confusion for a moment, and then thought better of questioning the man’s motivations. Shuffling just slightly to the side of where Ta-hem sat and picking up the first pot. Recognizing the scent inside immediately as Susinum; the very same perfume he knew the Pharaoh himself to use. Setting it down with the quiet clatter of the lid, he picked up the second. The smell of cassia and resin gum emanating from inside made his nose itch; he set it down quickly and sneezed into the crook of his arm. Beside him, faintly, the Pharaoh chuckled. The last pot of perfume mixed the same cinnamon scent of the Susinum with cardamom and southernwood, and the little raven set it gently down on top of the table. “This one.”

“Cyprinum.” He said. “Expensive taste, Pretty One.” Harry ducked his head as a renewed sense of embarrassment swept over him, and shifted his weight in discomfort. “My question has been answered. Now, leave that there and come here.”

Hesitating only long enough to ensure the pot of perfume was placed far enough back on the table that it wouldn’t accidentally tip off onto the floor and break, he returned to where he’d been standing. 

“On your knees.” Again with the soft commands. It seemed that the Pharaoh had tired of conversation. Heart beginning to race again, Harry did as he was told and sank down onto his knees. Looking on as Ta-hem undid his belt and shendyt to leave himself bare before him; long shaft and ruddy head nestled, already half erect, among dark curls. He’d seen his own plenty of times, and had seen passing glances at those of most of the rest of Gryffindor’s team in the locker room throughout the years, but this was the first time he’d been confronted with another’s manhood in a situation where he was expected to  _ do something _ with it.  _ Bloody hell, I’ve never wished I’d taken Zabini up on his little offer more than I do right now. At least then I’d have done this before! _

Somehow, despite staring at the other man’s impressive length, he’d forgotten that Ta-hem was there so when the Pharaoh buried his fingers in his hair he startled and looked up at him with wide eyes. “It is devotion I expect from you, not experience.” He said, red eyes blazing down at him. “Now, worship your King.”

He pressed, gently but firmly, against the back of Harry’s head; the insinuation of force if he didn’t comply the last bit of encouragement that he needed to brace himself against the older man’s muscled thigh and lean forward. Scattering hesitant kisses along the soft skin until his nose brushed the base. Breathing in the mingled scents of Susinum and snake and earthy musk; a strange combination that was as intoxicating as a good butterbeer and filled him with heat. Drawing back, Harry pressed another kiss to the very tip before finally daring to take the other man into his mouth. The Pharaoh hissing lowly as the raven reached up with his free hand to cup his balls.

The taste of salt and soap and something pleasurably bitter assaulted his senses. The other man’s flesh warm and heavy against his tongue as Harry did his best to clumsily wrap his lips around him and bob his head. Using his hands to stroke and squeeze what he couldn’t reach and expecting Ta-hem, at any moment, to force himself down his throat-far past what the little raven suspected he could take without choking-and bring himself to completion without a moment’s consideration for Harry’s own discomfort but he didn’t. Allowing him to do as he pleased, at his own speed, without making an effort to use the hand in his hair to control him until, just as the young wizard thought he was beginning to grow to consider the struggle to control his gag reflex something close to enjoyable, those long fingers caught a firm grip and pulled. His mouth coming free with a wet pop.

Ta-hem descended on him before he could truly catch his breath. Tongue delving past his lips and coiling around his own. Bringing with it the taste of wine and honey to further drown his senses. When the Pharaoh pulled away, his lips were left wet and kiss bruised and a thin trickle of drool dribbled down his chin. Harry hastily reached up to wipe it away, arousal hot beneath his skin. Green eyes falling to the older man’s ‘royal scepter’, now fully erect and twitching with the tempo of his pulse. Bouncing gently against his stomach as he rose from the stool to tower over him.

“Get on the bed. On your hands and knees.” His voice was ragged, now. Color risen high on his sharp cut cheeks. Harry scrambled to do as he was told, pushing passed the two layers of linen hangings-much thicker than those around his quarters in the Harem building-and climbing up onto the sumptuous bed on the other side. Ta-hem only a step behind. Rough hands caught a bruising grip around his waist to drag his hips higher. Fingers freeing the belt around his waist and yanking his shendyt free. His own length snapping forwards as the cold night air slithered over the exposed skin of his arse. The Pharaoh’s palms slid up along his sides and over his ribs, sliding up to his back and pressing his chest firmly downwards until he was all but face down in the sheets. His breath coming in quick bursts, his blood singing with a combination of fear and excitement. Every muscle in his body tightened in anticipation for the pain of the other man’s dry entrance, only to have Ta-hem’s touch suddenly vanish. His weight disappearing from the bed.

Footsteps passed back behind the linens, and then returned. The familiar click of a jostled clay lid accompanied his motion. Harry tried to turn his head to see what the other man was doing, but the darkness and his position thwarted the effort. The Pharaoh’s touch returned. The heel of his hand lightly pressing into his spine, up and down the length of his back in a soothing manner. “Relax. You’ll suffer more if you’ve tensed up your muscles like this.” Something slick and wet pressed against his entrance; too small to be anything other than a finger. 

Zahra had told him that the man didn’t care enough for their pain to bother with the courtesy of preparing them, and even that the suffering of his partners was a source of considerable enjoyment for him, so this behavior could only be described as incredibly strange and only served to make him more nervous. The nails of Ta-hem’s other hand drove into his left hip, impatience transforming his next words into a harsh snap.

“I  _ said  _ relax! I do not have to do this and can cease at any time!” 

Mind still racing, the little raven forced his breathing to calm and his body to relax. This, combined with the Pharaoh reaching around to paw at him, distracted him sufficiently for Ta-hem to slip two fingers into his body. Applying a liberal amount of the scented oil he’d been made to pick out earlier in the effort of stretching the opening enough to take three of his fingers before deeming him sufficiently ready to take something considerably larger.

Harry was only given a moment’s warning before the Pharaoh seized hold of his hips again and pressed himself inside. His growl intermingling with the little raven’s moan. Not stopping until he’d seated himself to the root, and then draping his larger frame over the young wizard. Back pressing into chest. Hot breath puffing against the back of his neck as Ta-hem began to nuzzle and kiss along his nape. Rocking slowly forward a handful of times before delivering a sharp, insistent thrust which made him cry out and pressed him deeper into the mattress. Fingers scrabbling uselessly at the sheets around him and vision tilting sideways as Ta-hem set a brutal pace. Pounding into him from behind with the carnal smack of flesh on flesh. His teeth snapping shut against the side of his throat, painting his lips red and making blood drip down over Harry’s shoulder and chest and onto the bed beneath him. The sharp sudden pain successfully shunting him over the edge and making his vision go white; spilling his pleasure across his chest and stomach. The Pharaoh slowed his pace until, with a last deep snap of his hips, he found his own release and pulled away. Lapping at the bloody wound a few times before he allowed the smaller man up onto his shaking limbs.

“Clean yourself.” He said, throwing a short length of cloth into his face almost the instant that Harry turned towards him in the dark, “and take the oil with you when you leave. You’re to use it to prepare yourself for me every night from here forward. I will not be doing so myself again. If you fail to do so before you’re called, I will still find pleasure while all you find is suffering.”

The dismissal was a plain one; picking up both the cloth and the little pot of perfume, paying as little mind as he could to the delicious ache low in his hips, he got up from the bed and made his way back from behind the hanging linens. Pausing only long enough to wipe the mess off his front and set his clothing to rights before leaving the royal apartments behind.

It was dark in the Harem building when he returned and he went immediately to his sleeping quarters. Stemming the blood as best he could before lying down among the scattered pillows to rest. 

He woke up the next morning to Zahra gently brushing her fingers through his hair. Blinking against the light coming in through the thin linens hung around his mat and popping his jaw with a yawn, Harry shuffled himself upright and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Morning.”

A small smile pulled at her lips. “Good morning, Har-ri.” Her amber eyes found the wound on the juncture of his neck and shoulder; a dark red crescent divided up into perfect imprints of the Pharaoh’s teeth. “Are you injured elsewhere?”

“Oh, uh, no.” Harry said. “He was...I don’t think kind would be the right word. But he didn’t hurt me. Just asked me questions, and then…” fidgeting in place and casting around for any means through which he could change the subject, he caught sight of her expression of concern and asked “is something wrong?”

“We shouldn’t discuss this now.” Zahra said, pushing herself up onto her feet. “Come and meet the others and have something to eat.”

He wasn’t given the chance to question her further before she disappeared back behind the linens. Huffing, Harry took only the time necessary to wrap himself in a fresh shendyt and put his jewelry back into place before he followed her out. The other concubines had formed a loose circle of glittering metal and colorful dresses in the minor garden just outside the harem around baskets of dates and the same cloudy bread that he’d been given a meager portion of at Sesostris’ home. Zahra motioned him over to the space that had been left beside her, to the left of a cinnamon haired young woman with score marks running down her arm and a dress of beaded turquoise. 

“Oh, you’re the new one.” She said on catching sight of him. “Has the Pharaoh called you yet?”

“Leave him be, Kamas!” Zahra said firmly. “This is Har-ri; he’s come to join us as a gift to the Pharaoh. I understand that you all are curious, but don’t make things more difficult on him than need be with too many questions.”

“She acts like we’re going to talk him into the afterlife.” Kamas said. “You don’t mind if we ask you a few questions, do you?”

“At least let him get some food.” Another woman said.

“I don’t mind, no.” Harry smiled as he picked up a piece of the crumbly bread and a small handful of dates. The bite on his shoulder had dried and begun to scab over, but still ached when he turned his head too far. “But I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer much. I don’t remember much of how I ended up here.”

The bread was dry and airy and tasted strongly of yeast; a sour flavor which would likely take him quite some time to properly get used to. He was passed a clay mug of what he assumed was water, only to almost choke in surprise when he took a drink.

“Is something wrong, child?” Zahra asked him, concerned.

“I...it’s beer!”

“Did you expect to be given water? Drinking from the Nile would make you ill.”

Couldn’t you boil water to make it safe? Did the Egyptians not know that? Was wine and beer really all they drank? How much alcohol was even in this? “No, I...it just took me by surprise is all.”

“I heard you were brought here by a noble.” Kamas said. “Which one?”

“Sesostris.” 

Clearly, the distaste that Harry had for the toad man was shared among the others; all of them frowned or made some variant of a disgusted sounding noise. “And what did you do to offend the Gods enough to land you with him?”

‘Offending the Gods’ was an interesting way to put it. Harry took another bite of the strange bread, and then followed it with a date to chase away the clinging flavor. “I’m not certain.” He said. “I was found by slavers, unconscious on the banks of the Nile. I’m not sure how I got there, or where I came from.”

“Is it true the Pharaoh took his eyes?”

“Ramla!” Zahra chidded. “I’m sorry, Har-ri. Before you she was our youngest and she hasn’t quite yet learned to think before she asks things.”

“Hathor’s grace, and you talk about me like I’m the one who has the biggest mouth.”

The rest of the meal passed by with calmer subjects, allowing Harry to sink into the background of conversation while he finished with his food and the remainder of his drink: thick and frothy, it was both considerably sweeter and considerably more filling than its modern equivalent. As a result, by the time Zahra asked him to walk with her he felt as if he’d eaten a full meal.

Curious, Harry got to his feet and-after bidding the other concubines a polite farewell-followed the older woman over to the pond that he’d seen the day before when he’d been led there by the Captain of the Guard.

About a sixth of the size of the pond in the royal garden, it was rounded and made to appear more natural by being ringed in with large rocks. A scattering of water hyacinth floated on the surface instead of lotus flowers, and smaller fish circled in its shallows. Zahra perched herself on one of the rocks which lined the edge, and Harry joined her a moment later.

“You are not the first in whom the Pharaoh has shown interest. And it does not bode well for you, Har-ri.” She said. “He is a vicious man. And his kindness is a far more deadly venom than his cruelty.”

“He...loved someone?” He’d thought that he had been the first, and perhaps the only, one that the Serpent King had ever truly cared for. Was that not the case? Had there been another? What had happened to them? And what was this burning sensation that the prospect had suddenly kindled in his belly?

“I do not think he is capable of love, child. But he was drawn to her; something in her spoke to his interest, and from the outside it seemed to be a good thing.” Zahra said. “She was the daughter of a Nomarch. And no one could have imagined what he would ultimately do to her. When the murder was discovered, it proved to be the final straw in convincing his father that his eldest son was not fit to take his place as Pharaoh.”

He had heard that Ta-hem had been replaced as heir by a younger sibling, but not the reasoning behind the decision.

“He ordered Tutu-Amen, his High Priest, to torture his son with the venom of a cobra until he gave up his true name, as once Isis tortured Ra so that Osiris could be king, and used it to strip him of his Heka. Once the then Prince was left near to powerless, he cast him out into the desert to die. But the Sun Eater found him there, and gave him a new true name and with it his power. He turned from Amun-Ra, on that day, and became the Son of Apophis instead and spent the next two years wandering the wild outskirts. Growing in power. Collecting a host of bandits and criminals to serve as his soldiers, and making deals with the nobles that he could sway to his side or even merely to stand out of his way.” Zahra said. “He did many red things on the day of his half-brother’s inauguration; not only murdering his family, and all his father’s concubines, but striking down Tutu-Amen in front of his then apprentice, Amunnepthes, when he called him a heretic and refused to crown him. He’s since disallowed the High Priest to return to Ra’s temple in Iunu, for fear of him conspiring against him with others.”

Small wonder that the man had looked at Ta-hem like he’d love nothing more than to push him off the highest mountain he could find. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need to be careful, Har-ri.” Zahra told him. “His kindness comes with greater cost than his displeasure. The longer you’re in contact with him the more likely you are to be killed.”

“What are you suggesting, Zahra?” he asked her, confusion joining a gnawing renewed concern in his gut. “That I avoid going to him when I’m called? That I leave as soon as I can? I don’t think either one of those will end particularly well.”

Biting her lip, she shook her head. Long black ringlets bouncing about her shoulders. “The only thing you can do is choose the God you think will be most fair,and pray that his interest in you will be a passing one.”

Harry was already well aware it wouldn’t be.


End file.
